449 


Wilson 

A  Discourse  on  Slavery 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


"A    'N   'esnjoug 


r 


DISCOURSE  ON  SLAVERY 


DEUVEUED  BEPOR1 


THE  ANTI-SLAVERY  SOCIETY  IN  LITTLETON,  N.  H., 


FEBRUARY    22,    1839, 


BY    W.    D.    WILSON. 


'UBLISHED    BY    REQUEST. 


PRINTED    BY    ASA    McFARLAND 

Opposite  the  State  House, 

1839. 


DISCOURSE  ON  SLAVERY 


DELIVERED  BEFORE 


THE  ANTI-SLAVERY  SOCIETY  IN  LITTLETON,  N.  H., 


FEBRUARY    22,    1839, 


BY    W.    D.    WILSON. 


"  He  whom  God  moves  to  speak,  expresses  himself  openly  and  freely,  careless  whether  he 
alone  or  has  others  on  his  side." — Martin  Luther. 


PUBLISHED    BY    REQUEST. 


PRINTED    BY    ASA    McFARLAND, 

Opposite  the  State  House. 

1839. 


PREFATORY  NOTE. 

I  have  not  thought  it  best  to  encumber  the  pages  of  this  discourse  with  references  to 
authorities,  either  in  the  text  or  in  marginal  notes.  The  principal  authorities,  beside  the  few 
references  in  the  page  where  the  quotation  occurs  are, the  Bible,  Jahn's  Archaeology,  Eschen- 
burg's  Manual  of  Classical  Literature,  Bancroft's  United  States,  Kent's  Commentaries,  and 
Jay's  Inquiry.  W.  D.  \V. 


DISCOURSE. 


Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen  : 

I  accept  with  pleasure  the  invitation  you  have  been  pleased  to  give 
me,  to  come  up  here  and  speak  to  you  at  this  time  on  the  subject  of 
human  slavery.  The  birth-day  of  Washington  brings  with  it,  to  every 
lover  of  freedom,  and  especially  to  every  freeman  of  America,  associa- 
tions calculated  to  awaken  in  his  bosom  the  noblest  and  holiest  emo- 
tions. The  recollections  of  a  man  great,  almost  beyond  human  weak- 
ness, a  nation's  father  and  idol,  who  had  been  their  pillar  of  fire  by 
night  and  of  cloud  by  day,  to  guide  them  during  their  long  and  peril- 
ous struggle  for  liberty,  and  who,  when  that  struggle  was  ended, 
planned  and  reared  a  form  of  government  to  which  all  eyes  are  turned 
in  admiration,  and  on  which  the  trembling  hopes  of  the  world  yet  hang, 
till  they  may  see  if  it  be  not  too  like  heaven  to  be  long  realized  here 
on  earth,  seem  to  call  us  forth  from  the  homely  routine  of  every  day 
thought  and  feeling,  to  set  apart  this  hour  to  the  entertainment  of  holier 
and  nobler  emotions.  When  we  think  of  him  whose  life  and  energies 
were  spent  in  the  cause  of  human  freedom,  without  a  taint  of  selfish- 
ness, avarice  or  ambition,  but  who  even  refused  the  emoluments  and 
power  that  the  fond  idolatry  of  the  people  he  had  served  would  gladly 
have  given  him,  we  seem  to  shut  our  eyes  upon  the  avarice,  corruption 
and  oppression  that  is  around  us,  and  for  a  while  persuade  ourselves 
that  it  is  not  so.  It  cannot  be  that  a  nation,  before  whose  eyes  has 
been  displayed  so  much  greatness,  such  purity,  such  devotion  to  the 
cause  of  man,  should  still  rob  three  millions  of  their  fellow-men  of 
their  dearest  rights.  It  cannot  be  that  men  made  of  the  same  clay, 
and  in  the  same  image  with  Washington,  can  be  so  unlike  him  as  to 
hear  calmly  the  chains  of  the  slave  clank  upon  their  native  soil,  and 
in  their  own  dwellings ;  the  bread  of  a  soil  watered  by  the  tears  and 
blood  of  slaves  cannot  be  sweet  to  their  mouths  ;  the  shrieks  and  groans 
of  the  chain-galled  African  cannot  be  music  to  their  ears.  But,  alas ! 
it  is  so  ;  it  is  no  dream.  Oh  !  that  it  were. 

It  does  seem  that  the  mention  of  human  slavery  in  connection  with 
the  name  of  Washington  would  be  enough  to  make  any  man  an  abo- 
litionist. It  does  seem  that  the  thought  of  three  millions  of  slaves  in 
our  own  country,  occurring  amidst  the  thoughts  and  feelings  inspired 
by  this  day  and  occasion,  would  be  enough  to  call  every  heart  and  hand 
to  the  assistance  of  the  oppressed.  It  does  seem  that  every  apology 
for  slavery,  and  every  plea  or  excuse  for  its  continuance,  must  shrink 

869827 


with  shame  from  that  mind  where  the  thought  of  Washington  is. 
"  What  fellowship  hath  righteousness  with  unrighteousness  ?  What 
communion  hath  light  with  darkness  ?  And  what  concord  hath  Christ 
with  Belial,"  or  Washington  with  Slavery  ?  No  ;  that  mind  through 
which  recollections  of  Washington  are  passing  is  too  much  purified  by 
their  sacred  presence  to  harbor  a  thought  of  continuing  slavery. 

Let  us  then  seize  this  auspicious  moment  to  examine  the  subject  of 
human  slavery.  Let  us  direct  the  thoughts  suggested  by  the  recur- 
rence of  an  anniversary  so  dear  to  freedom  to  the  cause  of  those  who  pine 
in  bondage  and  servitude.  It  will  be  well  to  bring  the  subject  of  sla- 
very into  our  minds  at  this  time,  and  look  at  it  as  it  lies  beneath  the 
blaze  of  glory  shining  there  from  Washington's  life  and  character.  It 
will  be  well  for  us  to  look  at  it  from  a  point  of  view  so  elevated  as  that 
to  which  the  recollections  of  Washington  can  carry  us,  and  with  minds 
purified  and  ennobled  by  their  sanctifying  influence. 

I  ought  to  say  in  the  outset,  that  I  do  not  come  here  as  the  organ  of 
the  Anti-Slavery  Society.  I  have  not  stretched  my  views  upon  the 
Procrustes-bed  of  any  society,  or  any  man.  I  have  scanned  my  lan- 
guage by  no  measure  but  that  of  my  own  thoughts  and  feelings.  It  is 
but  justice  to  myself  and  to  the  abolitionists  to  say,  that  they  are  not 
responsible  for  any  thing  I  may  say,  nor  am  I  for  any  of  their  doctrines 
or  measures.  I  expect,  as  a  matter  of  course,  that  the  views  I  am 
about  to  offer  will  coincide  with  theirs.  But  I  have  not  sought  such  a 
coincidence.  My  only  aim  has  been  to  be  the  mouth-piece  of  Truth 
and  Justice.  Truth  is  one  ;  and  all  who  seek  it  will  agree  if  they  seek 
aright.  The  dictates  of  justice  are  identical,and  the  same  to  all  men  who 
will  hear  with  reverence  ;  therefore  it  is  that  my  views  coincide  with 
the  views  of  the  abolitionists,  in  the  main ;  and  I  do  not  see  how  any 
man  can  hold  up  his  head  in  this  enlightened,  liberty-loving  country, 
and  dissent  from  them.  That  man  must  be  awfully  depraved,  and 
awfully  unconscious  of  his  depravity,  who  can  in  this  age  apologize  for 
slavery.  How  much  worse  is  the  case  of  him  who  objects  to  having 
the  subject  thought  of  and  discussed  in  public  !  What  but  unright- 
eousness shuns  the  light  ?  Who  are  they  that  love  darkness  rather 
than  light  r  and  why  ? 

There  is  a  numerous  and  daily  increasing  party,  who  have  professed 
to  take  the  part  of  the  slave  ;  and  while  I  can  see  nothing  to  dissent 
from  in  their  principles,  and  while  I  believe  their  cause  to  be  the  cause 
of  justice  and  truth,  I  dare  not  withhold  my  assistance.  There  may 
be  something  in  their  measures  to  disapprove  of:  there  may  be  some- 
thing uncharitable,  undignified  and  unchristian,  and  unworthy  so  noble 
a  cause.  But  they  are  men  and  not  angels.  They  have  a  nobleness 
of  principle  at  bottom  that  gives  them  unwavering  confidence.  It  gives 
them  a  boldness  that  leads  to  those  very  measures  that  call  forth  disap- 
probation. It  will  make  them  irresistible  and  triumphant  over  all  the 
opposition  they  may  meet  with.  They  plant  themselves  upon  the 
eternal  principles  of  Truth  and  Justice  ;  and  though  they  may  sometimes 
fight  with  unlawful  weapons,  still  the  cause  of  humanity,  which  they 
have  espoused,  will  give  them  a  mouth  and  wisdom  that  all  their  ad- 


versaries  shall  not  be  able  to  gainsay  or  resist.  They  appeal  to  the 
hearts  and  consciences  of  men,  and  their  words  go  to  the  hearts  and 
consciences,  and  stir  the  depths  of  the  soul  ;  while  those  who  oppose 
them  address  the  cupidity  and  fears  of  men,  by  portraying  the  evils 
which  they /ear  may  come  from  emancipation. 

There  is  no  case,  perhaps,  in  which  the  superiority  of  the  heart  over 
calculation,  of  conscience  and  principle  over  cupidity  and  seeming 
expediency,  is  so  manifest  as  in  the  case  of  the  abolitionists.  Let  an 
apologist  for  slavery  get  up  and  portray  all  the  profits  of  slavery,  all  the 
difficulties  and  hindrances  in  the  way  of  emancipation,  and  the  evils  of 
it  when  it  shall  have  come,  in  all  the  eloquence  his  subject  can  com- 
mand, and  it  will  be  sufficient  to  do  away  the  effect  of  all  that  he  can 
say,  to  have  a  person  whose  heart  swells  with  humanity  and  love,  ad- 
dress the  higher  sentiments  and  appeal  to  the  consciences  of  men  in 
favor  of  the  oppressed.  He  will  arouse  them  from  the  slumber  into 
which  the  apologist  for  slavery  would  rock  their  consciences,  that  so 
the  lower  nature  may  rule  the  man.  He  will  raise  them  above  all 
the  fears,  and  cupidity,  and  love  of  ease,  which  the  slave-holder  would 
address  in  pleading  for  the  continuance  of  slavery.  All  that  is  or  can 
be  said  against  emancipation  is  like  fuel  to  the  fire.  It  reveals  more  of 
those  very  evils  that  called  forth  the  abolition  eriterprize.  The  motives 
which  are  urged  for  the  continuance  of  slavery,  and  the  considerations 
by  which  the  appeals  of  the  abolitionists  are  met,  are  like  stone  walls 
to  stop  the  birds.  An  abolitionist  will  arise,  and  by  appealing  to  the 
higher  nature,  he  will  raise  them  at  once  above  all  the  considerations 
of  avarice.  He  is  able,  by  the  eloquence  with  which  his  subject 
inspires  him,  to  soar  with  them  above  all  that  the  opponent  of  freedom 
can  present,  and  carry  them  over  all  the  mountain  difficulties  that  make 
the  foot  path  to  the  desired  land  of  liberty  impassable.  It  is  only 
when  one  is  tired,  or  lazy,  or  drunk,  that  he  hits  his  foot  against  the  ine- 
qualities of  the  road  and  falls ;  but  let  there  come  over  his  heart  some 
all-engrossing  enterprize,  and  he  moves  on  unimpeded  by  those  very 
banks  against  which  he  was  just  before  stumbling.  Let  a  man  be  ani- 
mated by  some  ennobling  sentiment,  and  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
attaining  his  object  disappear,  or  even  become  advantages.  It  is  the 
slothful  man  only,  or  the  self-interested,  that  sees  a  lion  in  the  way. 
The  cause  of  humanity  does  thus  engross  and  animate.  It  is  the  glory 
and  the  recommendation  of  the  abolition  principles  that  they  can  and 
do  raise  men  above  the  stumbling  stones  in  the  way  of  the  stupid  and 
thoughtless  ;  that  they  can  and  do  raise  men  above  avarice,  conserva- 
tism and  an  indolent  fear  of  consequences.  I  know  that  this  fact  is 
regarded  by  many  as  a  proof  of  fanaticism  in  the  abolitionists.  I  do 
not  know  what  men  mean  to  insinuate  by  calling  the  abolitionists  fa- 
natics ;  I  simply  know  that  it  is  the  nature  of  truth  and  justice  to  make 
what  the  sober,  calculating,  ease-loving  votaries  of  '  Expediency'  call 
fanatics,  especially  if  they  are  opposed.  The  river  that  runs  quietly 
and  noiselessly  when  undisturbed,  becomes  the  thundering  cataract  only 
when  it  is  provoked  by  the  rocks  and  dams  that  obstruct  its  course. 

This  state  of  the  case  and  these  considerations  prove  to  him  who 


can  read  the  signs  of  the  times,  and  discern  what  the  spirit  meaneth, 
two  most  important  things  in  regard  to  the  subject : 

1.  It  proves  the  righteousness  of  the  cause  of  the  abolitionists  ;  inas- 
much as  it  succeeds  by  appealing  to  the  conscience  and  the  higher  senti- 
ments, while  those  who  oppose  it  appeal  to  something  much  lower,  as 
conservatism,  avarice,  or  a  selfish  fear  of  consequences. 

2.  It  proves  also  that  it  must  and  will  succeed.     Those  who  oppose 
it  succeed  only  so  long  as  they  can  belittle  people,  chill  them  and  keep 
them  in  the  dark.     But  the  abolitionists  ennoble  and  warm  men,   by 
calling  out  the  magnanimous  .sentiments  of  love  and   justice.      They 
spread  abroad  a  light  that  reveals  the  dark  recesses  of  cruelty,  crime 
and  pollution.     They  make  men  feel  that  there  is  something  more  im- 
portant than  money,  personal  gratification,  or  safety  even,  when  bought 
at  the  cost  of  innocence  and  righteousness. 

With  these  prefatory  remarks  upon  the  nature  and  prospects  of  the 
abolition  enterprize,  I  enter  upon  the  great  subject. 

I.  When  we  consider  what  man  is,  and  his  relation  to  the  universe 
in  which  he  lives,  it  does  not  seem  wonderful  that  slavery  should  have 
originated  early,  and  have  extended  to  all  countries.  There  is,  however, 
one  exception,  according  to  Bancroft,  to  the  universal  prevalence  of 
human  slavery.  Slavery  and  the  slave  trade  have  not  been  known  in 
Australasia.  Slavery  grew  out  of  man's  indisposition  to  work. 

Here  is  man,  a  being  that  must  be  clothed  and  fed.  But  the  earth 
will  not  bring  forth  its  products  spontaneously.  Man  must  toil  and 
cultivate  it  before  it  will  satisfy  all  of  his  demands.  But  man  is  indis- 
posed to  labor,  especially  in  southern  latitudes,  where  the  human  race 
began  its  career.  Those  who  had  cunning  enough  to  persuade  their 
neighbors  to  work  for  them,  and  let  them  be  idle,  would  do  so.  When 
men  congregated  into  tribes  it  was  found  necessary  to  have  some  one 
for  a  leader  and  lawgiver,  or  judge,  as  he  was  usually  called.  He  and 
a  few  of  his  friends,  whom  he  would  naturally  associate  with  him  in 
his  authority  and  privileges,  would  naturally  and  almost  necessarily  be 
exempted  from  all  the  drudgery  of  manual  labor.  His  successors  would 
feel  disposed  to  enjoy  and  increase,  if  they  could,  the  privileges  and  im- 
munities of  their  ancestors.  Feelings  of  equality  have  given  place  to 
those  of  aristocracy.  Gradually  the  laborers  or  servants  come  to  feel 
almost  as  a  part  of  the  master's  property.  Foreign  danger  helped  to 
tighten  the  bonds  that  bound  the  servant  to  his  master.  The  servant 
would  feel  that  he  owed  his  protection  to  his  master,  and  therefore  he 
must  be  obedient  and  faithful.  Here  is  the  patriarchal  institution. 

But  the  servants  did  not  like  to  work  any  better  than  the  masters. 
Enmity  would  naturally  arise  between  the  different  tribes,  as  they  came 
in  contact  with  one  another.  The  tribes  would  go  to  war  with  one 
another.  They  would  naturally  feel  that  they  had  as  good  right  to 
kill  their  fellow  men  who  injured  them  as  they  had  to  kill  wild  beasts 
of  which  they  knew  and  cared  about  as  much  as  they  did  of  the  men 
of  another  tribe.  If,  then,  it  was  right  to  kill  them,  they  would  naturally 
suppose  that  if  they  saved  them  alive  they  were  the  rightful  property 
of  their  captors.  The  captor  might  put  him  to  do  his  work  and  let 


him  enjoy  his  ease,  or  he  might  sell  him  or  do  what  he  pleased.  The 
captive  was  his  property. 

It  cannot  be  doubted  that  powerful  tribes  would  encourage  war,  and 
perhaps  enter  into  it  expressly  for  the  sake  of  making  slaves,  either  for 
their  own  use  or  as  an  article  of  merchandize,  after  they  had  begun  to 
have  commercial  relations  with  one  another.  Here  is  the  origin  of 
slavery,  properly  so  called. 

By  slavery  I  mean  involuntary  servitude.  Slavery  does  not  consist 
in  laboring  without  pay,  or  in  being  confined  and  subjected  to  anoth- 
er's will  merely.  Neither  does  it  consist  in  the  cruelties  of  the  situa- 
tion. But  it  consists  in  servitude  to  which  one  is  subjected  without 
consent  or  crime  ;  which  is  consent  when  the  known  penalty  is  im- 
prisonment and  servitude.  Hence  there  may  be  many  whose  condition 
is  as  bad  as  slavery  who  are  yet  no  slaves.  It  will  be  well  to  keep 
this  definition  of  slavery  in  view. 

Let  us  now  take  a  short  historical  survey  of  slavery,  as  it  existed  in 
the  principal  nations  of  antiquity.  We  must  never  lose  sight  of  the 
fact  that  the  slaves  of  ancient  times  were  the  captives  taken  in  war. 
A  nation  made  slaves  of  its  equals  and  sometimes  superiors.  Sla- 
very was  the  event  of  what  was  considered  honorable  and  lawful 
war.  There  was  no  man-stealing,  no  kidnapping  one  race  under  the  pre- 
tence that  they  were  made  inferiors  for  the  purpose  of  being  slaves  to 
their  superior.  This  doctrine  is  of  comparatively  modern  invention. 

Among  the  Hebrews,  Moses  was  obliged  to  permit  many  things  that 
were  not  so  from  the  beginning,  in  consequence  of  the  hardness  of  their 
hearts,  and  which  he  no  doubt  disapproved  of.  The  Jews  were  a  stiff- 
necked  people,  and  by  no  means  plastic  and  submissive  in  the  hands  of 
their  legislator.  He  found  it  more  than  he  could  do  to  secure  obedi- 
ence to  a  system  of  religion  and  a  form  of  government  so  much  better 
than  that  of  any  people  around  them,  without  aiming  at  perfection.  He 
must  suffer  them  in  many  things,  in  consequence  of  the  hardness  of 
their  hearts. 

There  were  two  kinds  of  servants  among  the  Hebrews. 

1.  The  first  class  of  servants,  or  slaves,  (for  the  same  word  is  used  in 
the  Hebrew  language  for  both,  as  they  stand  in  our  Bible,)  were  He- 
brews who  had  by  some  means  or  other  reduced  themselves  to  bond- 
age. A  Hebrew  might  fall  into  slavery  in  various  ways:  (a)  If 
reduced  to  extreme  poverty  he  might  sell  himself:  (6)  A  father  might 
sell  his  children  for  slaves :  (c)  Insolvent  debtors  might  be  delivered 
to  their  creditors  as  slaves  :  (d)  Thieves  who  were  not  able  to  make 
the  required  restitution  for  their  thefts,  were  sold  into  slavery. 

It  is  extremely  difficult  to  ascertain  in  many  cases  whether  a  law 
was  intended  for  Hebrew  servants,  or  for  those  who  were  captives. 
There  was,  however,  this  one  distinction.  At  the  end  of  seven  years 
the  Hebrew  servants  might  go  free.  If,  however,  one  chose  to  remain 
with  his  master,  he  might  declare  this  choice  in  the  presence  of  the 
judges,  and  the  master  would  bore  a  hole  through  his  ears,  and  he  must 
remain  with  him  forever.  But  this  forever  was  probably  only  until 
the  year  of  jubilee,  which  might  not  be  more  than  one  year,  and  could 
not  be  more  than  forty-three. 


2.  The  second  class  of  servants,  or  slaves,  were  those  who  had  been 
taken  in  war.  Their  condition  was  probably  worse  than  that  of  the 
former  class.  These,  and  their  children  after  them,  were  slaves  until 
death.  The  master  was  obliged  to  circumcise  them  and  teach  them 
his  religion.  If  the  master  injured  the  slave  in  eye  or  tooth,  or  any 
member  whatsoever,  the  servant,  in  consequence  of  such  injury,  was 
entitled  to  his  freedom.  Any  slave  who  had  run  away  from  another 
nation  and  sought  refuge  among  them,  was  not  to  be  given  up,  but  must 
be  treated  kindly. 

Says  Stevens,  (Travels  in  Egypt,  Arabia  Petrea  and  the  Holy  Land, 
vol.  1,  p.  77 :)  "  In  the  east  slavery  exists  now  precisely  as  it  did  in 
the  days  of  the  patriarchs.  The  slave  is  received  into  the  family  of  a 
Turk  in  a  relation  more  confidential  and  respectable  than  that  of  an 
ordinary  domestic,  and  when  liberated,  which  very  often  happens, 
stands  upon  the  same  footing  with  a  freeman.  The  curse  does  not 
rest  upon  him  forever ;  he  may  sit  at  the  same  board,  dip  his  hand  in 
the  same  dish,  and  if  there  are  no  other  impediments,  may  marry  his 
master's  daughter." 

Such  was  the  slavery  that  Moses  was  obliged  to  permit  to  the  He- 
brews. How  different  from  the  slavery  on  our  southern  plantations  ! 
The  slave  there  has  no  protection  that  the  horse  and  ox  have  not,  except 
when  a  murder  can  be  proved  by  white  men's  testimony.  No  black 
man  can  be  heard,  and  the  blacks  are  usually  the  only  witnesses  of  the 
cruelty.  If  the  slave  escape  from  bondage  in  one  state,  the  citizens 
among  whom  he  has  sought  refuge  have  bound  themselves  to  return 
him  if  he  be  claimed  by  his  master.  But  among  the  Jews  the  law  was, 
"  Thou  shall  not  deliver  unto  his  master  the  servant  which  is  escaped 
from  his  master  unto  thee  :  he  shall  dwell  among  thee,  even  among  you 
in  that  place  which  he  shall  choose  in  one  of  thy  gates,  where  it  liketh 
him  best:  thou  shall  not  oppress  him."  (Deut.  xxiii.  15,  16.)  The 
Jewish  servanl  whose  masler  had  maimed  him  could  receive  his  free- 
dom for  his  wrong.  Bui  here  he  musl  drag  oul  a  miserable  life,  unless 
the  masler,  more  from  consideralionsof  profil  lhan  of  mercy,  end  his  life 
al  once.  The  slave  can  gel  no  redress,  no  comforl.  The  slave  of  Ihe 
Turk,  Ihe  follower  of  Mahomet  '  the  Impostor,'  (?)  can  sit  at  the  same 
board,  dip  his  hand  in  the  same  dish  with  his  master' — '  he  can  marry 
his  master's  daughter,'  and  become  as  son  instead  of  a  servant,  but  the 
slaves  of  the  Americans,  the  citizens  of  Ihis  chrislian  democralic  repub- 
lic, "  shall  be  deemed,  held,  taken,  reputed  and  adjudged,  in  law,  to 
be  challels  personal,  in  Ihe  hands  of  Iheir  owners  and  possessors,  exec- 
ulors,  administralors  and  assigns,  lo  all  intents,  constructions  and  pur- 
poses whatsoever."  (S.  Carolina  Laws.)  "He  can  do  nolhing,  pos- 
sess nothing,  nor  acquire  anylhing  bul  whal  must  belong  lo  his  mas- 
ter." (Louisiana  Laws.)  The  Jewish  slave  musl  be  laughl  Ihe  Jew- 
ish religion  ;  but  Ihe  slaves  in  Ihis  chrislian  counlry  are,  in  Ihe  lan- 
guage of  Ihe  slaveholders  Ihemselves,  '  a  nalion  of  healhen  in  our  very 
midsl,  wilhoul  God  and  without  hope  in  the  world,'  and  Ihis  too  in 
consequence  of  the  laws  of  the  land. 

Among  the  Greeks  the  character  of  slavery  became  still  worse.    Their 


slaves  were  prisoners  of  war.  They  were  seldom  allowed  to  marry,  so 
that  very  few  were  born  into  slavery.  They  carried  on  the  whole 
business  of  the  Athenians.  They  were  their  merchants  and  mechanics 
as  well  as  cultivators  of  the  soil.  Many  were  skilful  in  the  fine  arts 
of  sculpture  and  painting,  and  even  well  versed  in  letters.  Some  of 
the  greatest  names  that  have  come  down  to  us  are  the  names  of  slaves, 
or  freedmen,  such  as  Epictetus  and  jEsop.  Slaves  often  obtained  their 
freedom.  The  courts  were  open  to  them.  They  could  bring  actions 
against  their  masters,  and  were  allowed  to  testify  against  them  in  their 
courts.  When  they  were  oppressed,  they  could  always  flee  to  the  Tem- 
ple of  Theseus,  where  they  were  free  from  the  master's  cruelty  and 
tyranny.  Have  the  slaves  on  our  American  plantations  stich  privileges 
as  these  ?  Can  they  sue  their  masters  at  law  ?  and  testify  in  court 
against  them  ?  Are  they  ever  allowed  to  be  skilled  in  letters  and  the 
arts  ?  Is  there  any  refuge  from  the  master's  fury  ?  No  ;  none  of  these 
things  in  Christian  America.  Yet  the  slave  of  the  heathen  Athens 
had  them  all. 

In  Rome,  the  condition  of  the  slaves  was  similar  to  that  at  Athens. 
Wherever  the  army  went,  there  they  made  slaves.  Slave  merchants 
were  always  found  attached  to  the  army. 

"  Slaves  in  Rome  occupied  every  conceivable  station,  from  the  dele- 
gate superintending  the  rich  man's  villa,  to  the  meanest  office  of  me- 
nial labor  or  obsequious  vice  ;  from  the  foster-mother  to  the  rich  man's 
child,  to  the  lowest  degradation  to  which  woman  can  be  reduced.  The 
public  slaves  handled  the  oar  in  the  galleys,  or  labored  on  the  public 
works.  Some  were  lictors,  some  were  jailors.  Executioners  were 
slaves.  Slaves  were  watchmen,  watermen,  scavengers.  Slaves  regu- 
lated the  rich  palace  in  the  city  ;  they  performed  all  the  drudgery  of 
the  farm.  They  were  frequently  taught  to  read  and  write,  and  the 
arts.  Virgil  made  one  of  his  a  poet.  Horace  was  the  son  of  a  slave. 
The  physician  and  the  surgeon  were  often  slaves — so  too  the  preceptor 
and  the  pedagogue  :  the  reader  and  the  stage  player  :  the  clerk  and  the 
amanuensis  :  the  architect  and  the  smith.  The  armigeri,  or  esquires, 
were  slaves.  You  cannot  name  an  occupation  connected  with  agricul- 
ture, manufactures,  or  public  amusement,  that  was  not  the  patrimony 
of  slaves.  Slaves  engaged  in  commerce  ;  slaves  were  wholesale  mer- 
chants ;  the  slaves  were  retailers.  Slaves  shaved  notes,  and  the  mana- 
gers of  banks  were  slaves." 

All  of  this  was  a  natural  consequence  of  their  system.  They  took  their 
equals,  and  often  superiors,  in  war.  They  did  not  go  and  steal  a  help- 
less race  and  degrade  them  even  below  what  they  were  by  nature,  and 
then  consider  that  very  degradation  which  they  themselves  had  made 
as  a  proof  that  they  were  intended  for  slaves.  It  was  the  common 
understanding  among  nations,  that  if  they  went  to  war  they  exposed 
all  of  their  men  to  slavery  who  might  happen  to  be  taken  prisoners. 
The  whole  army  of  Valerian  were  taken  prisoners  by  Sapor,  king  of 
Persia.  They  did  not  complain  of  this  as  unjust,  for  it  was  according 
to  the  laws  of  war.  It  was  doing  to  them  what  they  would  have  done 
to  their  enemies,  had  fortune  been  in  their  favor. 


10 

While  slavery  thus  spread  over  all  of  the  east,  we  find  nothing  like 
modern  negro  slavery.  We  find  no  case  where  the  slave  laws  and 
treatment  were  so  hard  as  in  our  southern  states.  The  slaves  were  the 
result  of  conquest  rather  than  avarice  ;  and  when  they  had  fallen  into 
the  master's  hands,  they  received  milder  treatment,  and  had  more 
means  of  enjoyment,  and  had  far  greater  hopes  of  liberty,  than  in  our 
own  country.  This  kind  of  slavery,  which  is  certainly  less  unright- 
eous, less  shocking  to  humanity,  than  African  slavery,  did  not  receive 
the  approval  of  conscientious  heathen,  even.  Aristotle  opposed  it  as 
unjust.  Justinian,  while  he  acknowledged  it  agreeable  to  the  laws  and 
the  practices  of  nations,  still  condemned  it  as  unjust  and  inhuman.  The 
whole  sect  of  the  Essenes,  as  they  were  called,  in  Asia,  and  Therapeutae, 
as  they  were  called  in  Greece  and  Egypt,  a  very  numerous  sect,  re- 
garded slavery  as  a  great  injustice  and  sin. 

II.  The  appearance  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  authorized  teacher  of 
the  world,  was  the  greatest  event  in  the  world's  history.  He  intro- 
duced a  religion  destined  to  become  universal.  We  profess  to  be  be- 
lievers in  that  religion.  We  profess  to  look  to  Jesus  as  the  author  and 
finisher  of  our  faith,  and  to  receive  his  doctrines  as  our  guide  and  rule  of 
conduct.  This  all  Christians  do.  It  is,  therefore,  important  to  examine 
the  position  that  Jesus  and  the  Christian  religion  assumed  towards  slavery. 
I  admit  that  there  is  no  passage  condemning  slavery,  in  express  terms. 
I  admit  that  Paul  exhorted  servants,  or  slaves,  to  be  obedient  to  their 
masters.  But  then  it  is  a  historical  fact,  that  slaves  were  equal  to 
their  masters  so  far  as  the  blessings  and  privileges  of  Christian  institu- 
tions were  concerned,  in  the  early  ages  of  Christianity. 

1.  In  the   first  place,  Christ  never  claimed  to  give  a  system  of  posi- 
tive laws.      He  did  not  condemn  such  a  law,   or  institution,  as  bad 
in  itself.    He  condemned  the  principle  upon  which  it  is  founded.    He  did 
not  seek  to  make  men  better,  by  outward  constraint,  but  by  changing 
the  inner  man.     He  did  not  seek  to  bind  and  compel  men's  hands,  but 
to  give  them  willing  hearts.    He  dealt  with  principles,  and  not  directly 
with  positive  institutions,  which  are  the  outward  manifestation  of  prin- 
ciples.   We  should  not,  therefore,  expect  any  express  prohibition  of  sla- 
very.    Christ  did   not  wish  to  forbid  it,  until  he  had  brought  men  to 
see  the  wickedness  and  injustice  of  it.     This  he  sought  to  do,  by  giv- 
ing them  such  principles  and  views  of  their  fellow  men  as  to  make 
them  regard  slavery  as  the  most  daring  outrage   against  the  laws  of 
God  that  man  could  commit. 

2.  Christianity  makes  no  distinction  between  the  races  of  men.    '  God 
hath  made  of  one  blood,'  that  is  to  say,  equal,  '  all  nations  of  men  to 
dwell  on  the  face  of  the  earth.'     Here   the  fundamental  principle  of 
negro  slavery  is  directly  contradicted  by  Christianity.     The  Africans  are 
not,  as  the  slaveholder  says,  a  race,  inferior  to  ours,  and  made  so  to  be 
slaves. 

3.  The  fundamental  principle  of  Christianity  is  declared  to  be,  "  Thou 
shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  soul,  and  mind,  and  strength, 
and  thy  neighbor  as  thyself '."      Now,  in  the  eye  of  the   gospel,  every 
one  is  your  neighbor  who  is  within  the  reach  of  your  benevolence. 
Is  slavery  a  manifestation  of  this  brotherly  love  ? 


n 

4.  "  Therefore,  all  things  whatsoever  ye  would  that  men  should  do 
unto  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them." 

Can  the  slave-holder  pretend  that  he  does  this  to  his  slave  ?  If  so, 
he  will  be  willing  to  give  the  only  convincing  proof  of  his  sincerity, 
by  changing  condition  with  his  slaves  for  a  while.  If  there  must  be 
slaves,  as  he  pretends,  let  him  alternate  with  the  black  man  ;  one  be 
slave  one  year,  and  the  other  the  next.  I'll  engage  that  the  black  man 
will  consent. 

Here,  then,  is  as  much  opposition  to  slavery,  as  there  could,  from 
the  nature  of  the  case,  be.  Bat  Christianity  will  riot  have  done  its  per- 
fect work,  in  this  respect,  when  slavery  is  abolished.  There  are  other 
violations  of  this  principle  of  love,  justice  and  equality,  that  must  melt 
away.  Abolition  will  not  have  done  its  work  till  it  hath  destroyed  the 
distinction  between  the  kitchen  and  the  parlor.  The  day  is  not  far  dis- 
tant when  this  last  evil  will  be  regarded  as  quite  as  unjustifiable  and 
as  inconsistent  with  Christianity  as  slavery  now  is.  God  speed  the 
happy  day. 

After  Constantino,  when  Christianity  became  the  religion  of  the  em- 
pire, Christian  captives  were  not  made  slaves.  The  slave-market  must 
be  supplied  from  the  captives  of  heathen  nations  and  tribes. 

The  nothern  tribes  had  practiced  the  same  policy,  of  making  slaves 
of  their  captives,  long  before  they  were  known  to  the  Roman  conque- 
rors, as  Greece  and  Rome  had  done. 

The  clergy,  during  the  period  from  this  time  to  the  Reformation, 
never  ceased  to  inveigh  against  the  evils  and  hardships  of  slavery,  and 
to  labor  for  its  abolition.  We  find  them  urging,  stoutly,  that  no  mas- 
ter should  have  power  to  punish  or  correct  his  slave,  without  regular 
process  in  the  courts  of  justice.  Pope  Alexander  III.  declared  that 
"  Nature  having  made  no  slaves,  all  men  have  an  equal  right  to  liberty." 
The  clergy  broke  open  the  slave-markets  of  Bristol,  Hamburgh,  Lyons 
and  Rome,  to  set  the  slaves  free.  LeoX.  declared  that  "  not  the  Chris- 
tian religion  only,  but  nature  herself,  cries  out  against  slavery,"  and 
Paul  III.  imprecated  curses,  in  two  separate  briefs,  on  those  who  should 
enslave  Indians,  or  any  other  class  of  men. 

After  Christianity  was  fairly  established  in  its  connection  with  the 
state,  then  was  presented  another  feature  of  slavery.  The  Christians 
seemed  to  feel,  that  in  consequence  of  the  peculiar  relation  which  they 
supposed  they  sustained  to  God,  they  had  a  right  to  enslave  all  who 
were  not  believers  in  Christ.  In  the  wars  in  which  the  Christians  were 
engaged  with  the  Mahometans  especially,  the  Christians  seemed  to  have 
no  doubt  that  it  was  right  to  make  the  followers  of  the  Impostor,  as 
they  called  him,  slaves.  They  pretty  generally  regarded  it  as  a  duty 
to  carry  on  war  against  the  unbelievers.  In  the  wars  of  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella,  against  the  Moors  of  Grenada,  it  was  considered  a  matter  of 
public  and  religious  rejoicing  when  they  had  succeeded  in  killing,  and 
especially  in  making  slaves,  of  the  followers  of  Mahomet. 

III.  We  have  now  arrived  at  a  new  and  most  important  era  in  the 
history  of  slavery.  Hence,  afterward,  the  character  of  slavery  among 
European  nations,  and  their  descendants,  is  materially  and  essentially 


different  from  what  it  was  before.  I  wish  to  call  your  attention  particu- 
larly to  this  fact,  as  it  deserves  the  most  serious  consideration,  and  is 
most  significant,  in  meaning,  to  the  friend  of  the  slave.  We  have  ar- 
rived at  the  origin  of  negro  slavery  ;  and  that  species  of  slavery  rests 
upon  a  foundation  entirely  different  from  that  of  any  other  species. 

Before  this  time,  slaves  were  taken  in  war.  They  were  a  part  of  the 
lawful  conquest.  After  this  time,  they  were  kidnapped  in  time  of  peace. 
Before  this  time,  nations  took  their  equals  in  fair  and  lawful  combat,  on 
the  battle  field.  Their  motive  was  not  so  much  avarice  as  glory.  Slaves 
were  the  trophies  of  war.  A  man  kept  them,  not  so  much  for  the  sake 
of  enriching  himself,  as  for  insignia  of  his  nobility  and  consequence.  But 
after  this  period  the  case  was  very  different.  The  innocent  and  helpless 
natives  of  Africa  were  hunted  and  kidnapped,  as  one  hunts  the  deer  of 
the  mountain.  They  were  carried  to  serve  the  avarice  of  masters  too 
lazy  to  work  for  themselves.  It  now  became  man-stealing.  The  motive 
that  actuated  those  who  enslaved  their  fellow-men  now  became  very 
much  lower  than  it  had  been  before.  It  was  that  base,  unprincipled  avarice, 
that  sacrifices  every  thing  to  self.  They  engaged  in  reducing  men  to 
slavery  for  the  sake  of  the  profits  of  slavery.  They  bought  and  sold  hu- 
man flesh  for  gain.  A  motive  so  grovelling  as  this  had  not  actuated 
the  enslavers  of  the  human  race  before.  The  difference  between  any  of 
the  kinds  of  slavery  that  existed  before,  and  negro  slavery,  is  the  same 
as  the  difference  between  war  and  secret  murder,  in  times  of  peace  ;  it 
is  the  same  as  that  between  a  duel,  where  the  parties  consent  to  risk  their 
lives  in  equal  combat,  and  midnight  robbery,  where  the  foot-pad  mur- 
ders the  traveller  for  his  money  ;  it  is  the  same  as  the  difference  between 
winning  one's  money  at  the  gaming  table,  and  stealing  it  in  some  secret 
and  well  laid  plan  of  thievery. 

It  was  now  field  that  Africans  were  an  inferior  race,  made  so  by  their 
Creator,  for  the  purpose  of  being  slaves  to  us,  their  superiors. 

We  must  expect  that  after  this  the  character  of  slavery  will  be  differ- 
ent, and  much  worse  than  before.  Man,  moved  by  avarice,  in  what  he 
has  persuaded  himself  is  right,  or  rather  has  determined  to  do,  whether 
right  or  wrong,  is  deaf  to  the  calls  of  mercy  and  humanity.  He 
will  hardly  hesitate  before  any  extreme  of  suffering  and  cruelty.  The 
thorny  recollections  of  past  injustice  and  wrong  will  embitter  his  hate 
for  his  victim,  and,  drunkard-like,  he  will  drown  the  past  in  the  greater 
cruelties  of  the  present.  O,  what  an  epoch  in  the  world's  history  was 
this  !  One  portion  of  the  great  family  of  man,  the  most  civilized,  the 
most  enlightened,  the  most  highly  favored  of  God,  their  common  Father, 
the  followers  of  his  only  begotten  and  dearly  beloved  Son,  the  profes- 
sors of  the  only  true  religion,  to  whose  care  God  had  committed  the 
reformation  and  salvation  of  the  world,  deliberately  and  coolly  doomed 
their  unfortunate  brethren,  for  whose  benefit  they  had  been  entrusted 
with  so  many  blessings  by  their  heavenly  Father,  to  slavery  ;  to  drag  out 
a  miserable  life,  in  toil,  and  groans,  and  all  the  unmitigated  horrors  of 
bondage.  What  mercy  can  we  hope  for  the  poor,  defenceless  African, 
now?  Who  shall  deliver  him  from  the  cruelties  of  a  master  more  dread- 
ful than  the  wild  beasts  of  his  native  forest?  for  into  such  hands  he  must 
sometimes  fall.  O  ye  thunders  of  Almighty  God,  why  do  ye  sleep ! 
Ye  rocks,  hills  and  mountains,  why  do  ye  stand  in  silence  and  see  the 


13 

chains  fastened  upon  the  innocent,  defenceless  sons  of  God,  your  Creator 
and  theirs !  Ye  surrounding  deserts,  why  do  ye  not  overwhelm  the 
enslaving  demons  with  your  drifting  sands  !  Old  Ocean,  how  can  you 
keep  quiet !  why  not  open  and  let  down  the  slavers  as  they  sail  over  your 
tranquil  bosom  !  Man  will  not  defend  his  brother  man,  and  why,  ye  ele- 
ments, why  will  not  you  ?  O  Africa '  why  did  not  you  sink  at  once 
to  a  watery  grave,  where  the  weary  are  at  rest,  and  the  wicked  cease 
from  troubling  ? 

This  change  in  the  character  of  slavery  is  enough  to  convince  me 
that  it  has  arrived  at  its  last  stage.  The  darkest  hour  is  the  last  before 
the  day  dawns.  The  men  into  whose  hands  slavery  has  now  fallen,  with 
their  views  and  motives,  will  carry  it  to  such  extremes  as  to  call  forth  an 
opposition  that  will  exterminate  the  evil.  It  is  a  doctrine  of  reason,  and 
confirmed  by  the  experience  of  all  history,  that  when  any  institution  or 
practice,  which  is  not  founded  on  the  principles  of  truth  and  justice,  has 
fallen  into  the  hands  of  low,  avaricious  men,  they  always  carry  it  so  far 
as  to  shock  and  rouse  the  slumbering  moral  sentiment  of  the  more  vir- 
tuous and  well-principled,  till  they  commence  an  opposition  to  the  evil 
which  ends  in  its  extinction. 

I  will  give  but  two  illustrations  out  of  the  hundreds  that  history  affords. 
The  sale  of  indulgences  by  the  Pope  of  Rome,  which  was  first  introduced 
as  a  mere  matter  of  convenience,  was  at  last  seized  upon  by  the  cupidity 
of  Leo  X.  as  a  means  of  raising  money  to  defray  the  expense  of  the 
extensive  building  in  which  he  was  engaged.  His  avaricious  motives 
carried  the  evil  so  far,  as  to  call  forth  Luther  and  the  Reformation.  The 
only  other  case  I  shall  cite  is  that  of  England  in  taxing  the  Colonies. 
She  had  practiced  upon  the  unjust  principle  of  taxation  without  repre- 
sentation, until  her  avarice  carried  it  so  far  as  to  arouse  the  inhabitants 
of  the  Colonies,  as  one  man,  to  throw  off  the  yoke  which  they  had  long 
worn,  but  had  now  become  more  heavy  and  galling. 

This  is  now  most  obviously  the  case  with  slavery.  It  has  fallen  into 
the  hands  of  avaricious  men.  The  tendency  of  public  opinion  is  towards 
liberty  and  equality,  true  democracy.  Here  slavery  stands  in  this  age,  in 
the  sunny  days  of  liberty,  intelligence  and  religion ;  having  sailed  down 
the  current  of  time,  like  some  ice-berg  that  has  floated  from  the  frozen 
regions  of  its  northern  home,  into  the  tropics,  where  every  thing  around 
is  opposed  to  it,  and  it  to  every  thing.  Those  who  are  interested  in  re- 
taining it  still  longer,  draw  tighter  and  tighter  the  bands  of  slavery, 
lest  its  diminished  form  slip  out;  not  considering  that  the  bands  are  so 
tight  already  as  to  be  bursting  and  falling  off. 

The  tribes  of  Africa  have  been  accustomed  to  make  slaves  of  the  cap- 
tives taken  in  war,  from  the  earliest  times  of  which  we  have  any  informa- 
tion. Slavery  existed  among  the  tribes  of  Africa,  just  as  it  had  done 
among  the  tribes  of  Europe.  Equals  enslaved  equals.  But  African 
slaves  were  not  introduced  into  Europe  until  A.  D.  1440. 

Soon  after  the  Portuguese  conquests  in  the  Barbary  states,  the  love  of 
gain  and  hatred  for  the  infidels  induced  the  Portuguese  to  visit  western 
Africa.  They  sailed  so  far  south  as  Cape  Blanco.  Antony  Gonzalez,  the 
leader  of  the  expedition,  took  some  of  the  natives  and  brought  them 
home.  They  were  not,  however,  treated  as  slaves,  but  rather  as  strangers, 
who  were  required  to  give  information  of  their  native  country.  They 


14 

were  finally  carried  back,  and  their  fellow-countrymen  gave  the  Portu- 
guese gold  and  African  slaves  in  exchange.  This  was  the  first  introduc- 
tion of  negro  slavery  into  Europe  ;  "  and  mercantile  cupidity,"  says  Ban- 
croft, "  immediately  observed  that  negroes  might  become  an  object  of 
lucrative  commerce.  New  ships  were  despatched  without  delay."  Spain 
also  engaged  in  the  traffic,  and  even  claimed  the  honor  of  having  first 
introduced  it. 

In  1492,  Columbus  discovered  America,  and  carried  back  with  him  to 
Spain  five  hundred  native  Indians,  for  slaves.  But  these  Indians  were 
liberated  by  the  humanity  of  Isabella.  The  same  cupidity,  however,  that 
had  so  eagerly  engaged  in  the  African  slave-trade,  immediately  com- 
menced to  take  the  natives  of  America  for  its  victims.  But  they  were 
not  good  slaves ;  they  were  too  shy  to  be  easily  caught,  so  the  project 
was  finally  abandoned.  But  the  discovery  of  the  new  world  opened  an 
extensive  slave-market.  Thither  the  slavers  directed  their  course,  and 
by  this  means  Europe  has  been  saved  being  overrun  by  a  slave  popula- 
tion, as  we  are.  The  different  nations  engaged  in  the  profitable  traffic. 
This  they  seemed  to  do  remorselessly.  Nations  have  no  conscience. 

The  cultivation  of  sugar  was  now  successfully  begun  in  Hispaniola. 
It  was  found  that  one  negro  could  do  as  much  work  as  four  Indians,  and 
the  mild  and  tender-hearted  Las  Casas  returned  from  Hispaniola  to  plead 
with  the  Spanish  court  to  relieve  the  Indians  ;  and  since  he  saw  that  they 
would  have  some  slaves,  he  proposed  that  the  more  hardy  Africans,  who 
he  had  seen  were  better  able  to  bear  the  burden,  should  be  substituted 
for  the  Indians.  This  was  in  1517,  and  the  emperor,  Charles  V.  granted 
a  patent  to  certain  persons  to  supply  the  Spanish  islands  with  slaves. 
But  even  now  there  were  some  who  opposed  the  slave-trade  as  unjust 
and  iniquitous.  Among  them  was  Soto,  the  confessor  of  Charles  V. 
Cardinal  Ximines,  whatever  he  might  have  thought  of  the  justice  of 
slavery,  opposed  the  introducing  of  negroes  into  the  Spanish  islands,  as 
impolitic.  His  predictions  proved  true,.'  Hayti,  the  first  spot  to  receive 
African  slaves,  was  the  first  spot  of  successful  resistance  to  the  whites ; 
and  the  first  to  establish  a  government  of  free  blacks  in  the  western 
world. 

In  1562,  Sir  John  Hawkins  fraudulently  carried  a  cargo  of  slaves  to 
Hispaniola.  This  was  the  first  of  Englishmen's  engaging  in  the  traffic. 
The  profits  of  such  commerce  attracted  the  attention  of  Queen  Elizabeth. 
The  English,  ever  bent  upon  gain,  encouraged  the  business. 

In  1645.  Thomas  Keyser  and  James  Smith,  the  latter  a  member  of  the 
church  in  Boston,  sent  out  a  ship  to  Guinea, '  to  trade  for  negroes.'  This, 
I  believe,  was  the  first  instance  of  any  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  Colonies 
engaging  in  this  nefarious  traffic.  But  Massachusetts  could  not  approve 
of  such  injustice.  The  cry  was  raised  against  Keyser  and  Smith,  as  mal- 
efactors and  murderers.  After  advice  with  the  elders,  the  representatives 
ordered  the  negroes  to  be  restored  to  their  native  country  at  the  public 
charge. 

In(  Virginia,  there  had  from  the  first  existed  a  species  of  servitude, 
brought  over  from  England.  The  servant  stood  to  his  master  in  the  rela- 
tion of  a  debtor,  bound  to  discharge  the  costs  of  his  emigration,  by  the 
employment  of  his  powers  for  the  benefit  of  the  creditor.  This  soon 
gave  rise  to  oppression  and  cruelty.  Persons  in  England  decoyed  the 


15 

unwary  into  coming  over  here,  and  then  sold  them  for  four,  five  and  six 
times  the  cost  of  emigration.  The  condition  of  these  apprenticed  ser- 
vants was  limited  to  a  certain  time,  and  the  laws  favored  their  early 
enfranchisement. 

In  August,  1620,  a  Dutch  man-of-war  entered  James  river,  and  landed 
twenty  negroes.  This  is  the  epoch  of  the  introduction  of  African  slavery 
among  the  English  Colonies.  The  increase  was  at  first  slow.  But  the 
increasing  demand  for  laborers,  and  the  superiority  in  point  of  profit  of 
the  negro  slaves  over  any  other  kind  of  laborers,  tended  to  increase  the 
number  of  slaves. 

From  that  period  negro  slavery  extended  itself  to  nearly  or  quite 
all  of  the  states.  Massachusetts  was  the  first  to  abolish  it.  That  was 
the  only  state,  in  1788,  when  the  constitution  was  adopted,  whose  laws 
did  not  tolerate  slavery.  The  northern  states  have,  however,  gradually 
abolished  it,  so  that  now  it  does  not  exist  north  of  Maryland,  Virginia, 
and  Kentucky.  It  was  declared,  by  an  ordinance  of  congress,  on  the  13th 
of  July,  1787,  recommended  by  Thomas  Jefferson,  that  "there  should  be 
neither  slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude  in  the  territory  north  of  the 
Ohio  river,  after  that  time,  except  as  a  punishment  for  crimes." 

Negro  slavery  still  exists  in  this  republic  in  the  District  of  Columbia, 
all  the  southern  states  and  territories  ;  and  to  that  we  will  direct  our  atten- 
tion. 

I  now  proceed  to  speak  of  the  political  relation  between  slavery  and 
our  country  ;  and  consider  the  position  that  the  constitution  assumed 
towards  that  institution. 

When  the  convention  assembled  at  Philadelphia,  in  May,  1787,  the  laws 
of  every  state  except  Massachusetts  tolerated  slavery.  In  this  state  of 
things  it  could  not  well  be  that  the  constitution  proposed  by  such  an 
assembly  should  not  recognize  slavery  in  some  form  or  another.  Yet 
nothing  is  clearer  than  that  the  heroes  and  patriots  who  had  just  been 
so  much  engaged  in  the  struggle  for  their  own  liberties,  expected  that 
negro  slavery  would  soon  cease,  and  be  out-rooted  from  our  republic. 
During  this  struggle  they  had  "  remembered  those  in  bonds  as  bound 
with  them."  They  could  not  well  raise  their  hands  and  hearts  to  pray 
God  to  assist  them,  without  resolving,  as  soon  as  they  should  have  suc- 
ceeded in  their  cause,  to  commence  a  course  of  measures  that  should 
result  in  freedom  for  every  man  in  the  country,  whether  black  or  white. 
Persecuted  sects  always  preach  toleration ;  and  so  the  oppressed  preach 
universal  freedom. 

Accordingly  the  delegates,  in  framing  the  constitution  which  they  hoped 
and  expected  would  be  perpetual,  and  remain  as  the  bond  of  union 
between  the  different  states  long  after  slavery  should  be  abolished,  care- 
fully avoided  using  the  word  "slave"  as  though  they  would  blot  out  every 
thing  that  could  tell  to  future  generations  that  a  nation  of  freemen,  who 
had  declared  that  "  all  men  are  born  free  and  equal,"  and  who  had 
"pledged  their  lives,  fortunes,  and  sacred  honor"  to  maintain  that  doc- 
trine, had  still  continued  to  contradict  that  doctrine  by  their  most  solemn 
declarations,  and  still  held  their  fellow-men  in  a  bond  age  far  more  galling 
and  degrading  than  that  which  they  had  shed  so  much  blood  to  free 
themselves  from.  The  great  men  of  that  day  had  been  roused,  by  the 
exciting  scenes  in  which  they  had  been  engaged,  above  that  stupidity, 


16 

that  heartless  calculation,  that  indifference  to  all  but  self,  that  could  think 
of  holding  any  one  in  slavery,  on  any  consideration,  whatever  might  be 
his  color,  or  however  degraded  he  might  be.  We  seem  to  be  quite  igno- 
rant how  much  the  great  men  of  that  time  opposed  slavery.  It  is  a  fact 
which  we  seem  to  overlook,  that  all  the  great  men  of  that  time  were 
abolitionists.  They  all  held  the  same,  or  nearly  the  same,  views  of  slavery 
that  modern  abolitionists  do. 

What  position  then  did  the  constitution  proposed  by  such  men  assume 
towards  slavery  ?  I  have  already  said  that  the  word  '  slave,'  or  '  slavery,' 
does  not  occur  in  that  instrument.  I  now  say,  that  there  is  not  a  word 
there  that  would  not  have  an  appropriate  meaning,  if  there  had  been  no 
slaves  in  the  land.  There  are  but  three  passages  that  have  any  direct 
bearing  upon  slavery ;  and  no  one  who  did  not  know  that  there  were 
slaves  in  the  country  when  the  constitution  was  adopted,  would  ever 
infer  from  the  instrument  itself  that  there  were  any.  This  studious 
omission  of  the  word '  slave,' and  of  any  exclusive  reference  to  the  slaves, 
is  to  my  mind  most  significant  of  the  views  and  expectations  of  the  frarners 
of  the  constitution. 

The  first  passage  that  can  have  any  reference  to  slaves,  is  in  art.  1, 
sec.  2,  clause  3d  :  where  it  is  said,  that  representatives  and  direct  taxes 
shall  be  apportioned  to  the  number  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  states,  which 
shall  be  determined  by  adding  to  the  whole  number  of  free  persons,  in- 
cluding those  bound  to  service  for  a  term  of  years,  and  excluding  the 
Indians,  "three  fifths  of  all  other  persons."  These  six  words,  'three 
fifths  of  all  other  persons,'  refer  doubtless  to  the  slaves.  But  if  one  did 
not  know  that  we  had  slaves,  from  another  source,  he  could  not  infer 
from  this  language  that  we  had  any. 

The  next  clause  is  in  art.  1,  sec.  9,  first  clause:  where  it  is  declared 
that  congress  shall  not  have  the  power  to  prohibit  the  importation  of 
"such  persons  as  the  states  now  think  proper  to  admit," before  1808. 

The  next  reference  to  slaves  is  in  art.  4,  sec.  2,  third  clause  :  which 
provides  for  the  sending  back  "  all  persons  held  to  service  or  labor"  in 
one  state  who  may  have  escaped  into  another. 

I  cannot  forbear  remarking  again  upon  the  delicacy  with  which  the 
framers  of  the  constitution  treated  the  subject  of  slavery.  Those  noble 
men  could  not  speak  the  word  '  slave'  without  a  blush  at  the  thought  of 
their  inconsistency,  so  long  as  slavery  continued  in  our  country.  They 
very  delicately  avoided  offending  the  freemen  of  our  country,  by  using 
the  word  '  slave,'  as  though  there  were  any  slaves  in  this  land  of  liberty, 
in  the  bond  of  union  between  the  states. 

They  had  not  the  shame-faced  impudence  to  ask  the  people  to  con- 
sign one  part  of  their  inhabitants  to  hopeless  slavery,  by  that  very  instru- 
ment by  which  they  secured  their  own  freedom  and  the  protection  of  the 
laws.  They  wished  to  do  no  such  thing.  Yet  it  is  said  that  the  consti- 
stitution  guarantees  the  perpetuation  of  slavery, — that  the  men  who 
fought,  and  bled,  and  prayed  to  God  for  their  own  freedom,  consigned 
other  men  to  slavery.  Had  such  a  proposition  been  made  to  the  veterans 
of  '76  they  would  have  remonstrated  with  a  vehemence  that  would  have 
made  our  rock-ribbed  mountains  ring  with  their  reverberations. 

Yet  the  constitution  did  recognize  slavery.  This  is  an  astonishing 
fact,  and  calls  for  an  explanation.  1  offer  the  following : 


17 

When  the  convention  met  at  Philadelphia,  to  frame  a  constitution,  the 
necessity  of  something  of  the  kind,  by  which  the  federal  government 
could  be  more  consolidated  and  efficient  than  it  was  under  the  old  con- 
federacy, was  most  pressing.  Slavery  existed,  and  the  south  felt  that 
they  could  not  emancipate  all  of  their  slaves  immediately.  Therefore  it 
was  necessary,  if  they  would  have  any  constitution,  to  adopt  one  that 
should  tolerate  slavery,  for  a  while  at  least.  The  patriots  of  that  age 
thought  that  by  so  modifying  the  constitution  as  to  tolerate  slavery,  they 
should  by  no  means  perpetuate  it,  or  retard  its  entire  abolition,  while 
they  should  secure  the  adoption  of  a  federal  constitution.  A  constitu- 
tion that  required  immediate  ^mancipation  would  not  be  received,  and 
they  could  do  nothing,  by  recommending  such  an  one,  to  hasten  the  abo- 
lition of  slavery.  Under  these  circumstances  they  did  the  best  they 
could,  as  they  thought,  and  recommended  the  constitution  that  was 
adopted,  and  under  which  we  live. 

But  there  is  evidence  sufficient  to  prove  to  my  mind  that  there  was  an 
implied  promise  on  the  part  of  the  southern  states,  that,  if  we  would 
adopt  a  constitution  tolerating  slavery,  they  would  immediately  take  ' 
measures  which  should  result  in  the  emancipation  of  every  slave,  "at  a 
period  not  remote."  I  give  an  outline  of  the  testimony.  I  have  already 
referred  to  the  general  expectation  among  the  framers  of  the  constitu- 
tion, and  all  the  distinguished  men  of  that  day,  that  the  happy  event 
would  soon  come.  I  quote  from  the  discussions  in  the  conventions  of 
the  different  states,  held  about  that  time,  and  partly  for  the  purpose  of  dis- 
cussing and  adopting  the  constitution  that  had  been  recommended  to 
them. 

Mr.  Iredell,  of  N.  Carolina,  afterwards  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  U.  S.  said,  "  When  the  entire  abolition  of  slavery  takes  place,  it 
will  be  an  event  pleasing  to  every  generous  mind  and  every  friend  of 
human  nature."  Here  it  is  clearly  shown  that  he  expected  that  slavery 
would  be  entirely  abolished.  Judge  Wilson,  of  Pennsylvania,  one  of 
the  framers  of  the  constitution,  afterwards  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  U.  S.  said,  that  he  "considered  the  clause  relating  to  the  slave 
trade  as  laying  the  foundation  for  banishing  slavery  out  of  this  coun- 
try. Yet  the  lapse  of  a  few  years  and  congress  will  have  the  power 
to  exterminate  slavery  within  our  borders." 

Mr.  Tyler,  of  Virginia,  when  opposing  that  clause  which  forbids 
congress  to  prohibit  the  foreign  slave  trade  before  1SOS,  said,  "  My 
earnest  desire  is  that  it  shall  be  handed  down  to  posterity  that  I  opposed 
this  wicked  clause."  Mr.  Johnson  said,  "  The  principle  of  emancipation 
has  begun  since  the  revolution.  Let  us  do  what  we  will,  it  will  come 
round."  Judge  Dawes,  of  Mass,  said,  "  Slavery  has  received  a  mortal 
wound."  General  Heath  said,  "  Slavery  was  confined  to  the  states 
now  existing  ;  it  could  not  be  extended.  By  their  ordinance  congress 
has  declared  that  the  new  states  should  be  republican  states  and  hold 
no  slaves." 

These  are  quotations  from  the  discussions  in  the  conventions  of  the 
states,  and  show  clearly  what  w£s    the   expectation.      We   have   seen 
that  this  expectation  was  not  confined  to  the  northern  states.      It  pre- 
vailed at  the  south.     I  give  one  more  quotation  still  more  explicit.    In 
c 


the  Virginia  convention  of  1787,  Mr.  Mason,  author  of  the  Yirginia 
constitution,  said,  "  The  augmentation  of  the  slaves  weakens  the  states, 
and  such  a  trade  is  diabolical  in  itself  and  disgraceful  to  mankind.  As 
much  as  I  value  a  union  of  all  the  states,  I  would  not  admit  the  south- 
ern states"  (S.  Carolina  and  Georgia)  "  into  the  union  unless  they  agree 
to  a  discontinuance  of  this  disgraceful  trade  ;"  and  'a discontinuance  of 
this  disgraceful  trade'  was  regarded  as  a  '  mortal  wound  to  slavery.'  the 
beginning  of  a  course  of  measures  to  result  in.  the  "  banishing  slavery 
out  of  this  country." 

If,  then,  the  south  encouraged  such  an  expectation  for  the  purpose  of 
securing  the  adoption  of  the  constitution  as  it  now  is,  does  it  not  amount 
to  an  implied  promise  that  they  would  take  measures  to  bring  about 
the  expected  emancipation  ?  Yet  they  have  done  directly  the  contra- 
ry to  this.  Now  they  have  the  impudence  to  come  forward  and  say, 
that  it  is  a  breach  of  faith  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of  Colum- 
bia and  the  Territories.  It  is  infringing  upon  their  rights  for  us  to 
talk  about  emanci ration.  We  have  no  right  to  interfere.  Shall  we 
be  duped  by  such  things? 

But  let  us  look  a  little  more  minutely  at  the  relation  which  the  con- 
stitution sustains  to  the  slave.  I  profess  no  great  skill  in  the  legal 
science,  but  I  will  undertake  to  prove  before  any  impartial  court,  that 
the  slave  laws  in  the  southern  states  are  unconstitutional,  and  that  the 
slave  has  by  the  constitution  a  right  to  his  freedom.  "  In  the  language 
of  the  supreme  court,  '  There  are  acts  which  the  general  or  state  leg- 
islatures cannot  do,  without  exceeding  their  authorities.  There  are 
certain  vital  principles  in  our  free  republican  government  which  will 
determine  and  over-rule  an  apparent  and  flagrant  abuse  of  legislative 
power ;  as,  to  authorize  manifest  injustice  by  positive  lav/,  to 
take  away  that  security  for  personal  liberty  or  private  property  for  the 
protection  whereof  the  government  was  established.  An  act  of  the 
legislature  contrary  to  the  great  first  principles  of  the  social  compact 
cannot  be  considered  a  rightful  exercise  of  legislative  authority.'  " 
Ely  Moore's  speech  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  Feb.  4,  1839. 

Here,  I  ask,  are  not  the  supreme  court  obliged,  by  this  decision  of 
theirs,  to  set  aside, -as  unconstitutional,  any  law  which  upholds  human 
slavery  ?  or  is  human  slavery  no  '  manifest  injustice  ?'  and  does  it  not 
take  away  the  '  security  for  personal  liberty  ?'  According  to  this  decis- 
ion, is  not  any  law  that  acknowledges,  or  is  founded  upon  the  right  of 
property  in  human  beings,  unconstitutional  ? 

It  is  declared  in  the  preamble  to  the  constitution,  that  it  was  adopted 
"to  establish  justice,"  "to  ensure  domestic  tranquility,"  "to  promote 
the  general  welfare/'  "and  to  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty."  But 
every  law  which  has  been  enacted  against  the  slave  has  done  directly 
contrary  to  this.  The  laws  of  the  southern  states  have  made  the  con- 
dition of  the  slave  a  great  deal  worse,  while  they  have  done  nothing 
to  benefit  his  condition  since  this  declaration. 

Instead  of  '  establishing  justice,'  the  slave  laws  have  established 
injustice  and  oppression.  Instead  of  '  ensuring  domestic  tranquility,' 
they  have  increased  ten  fold  the  fear  of  servile  insurrection,  and  the 


peril  of  living  in  the  slave  holding  states.  Instead  of  '  promoting  the 
general  welfare,'  they  have  ground  the  black  man  into  the  dust,  and 
subjected  him  to  merciless  cruelty.  How  has  the  constitution  secured 
the  blessings  of  liberty  to  one  fifth  of  the  people,  who  are  now  in 
chains?  How  has  it  secured  the  right  of  petition,  and  the  freedom  of 
discussion  ?  How  does  it  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  any  one 
who  goes  to  the  south,  believing  slavery  to  be  a  sin  ?  Let  those  who 
have  suffered  by  the  Lynch  law  answer. 

But  if  the  constitution  recognizes  slaves  at  all,  it  recognizes  them 
as  persons,  as  men.  Yes  ;  if  the  constitution  recognizes  slaves  at  all, 
then  it  recognizes  them  as  persons,  and  stands  upon  the  ground,  that 
all  men  or  persons  are  born  free  and  equal,  and  that  they  have  certain 
inherent  rights,  which  no  legislation  can  deprive  them  of,  such  as  life, 
liberty  and  property.  If,  then,  the  constitution  recognizes  slaves  as 
persons,  it  does  thereby  secure  to  them  all  the  rights  of  persons, — 
among  which  are  a  right  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness  ; 
and  every  law  that  makes  the  case  of  the  slave  worse  than  that  of  a 
town  pauper,  or  an  apprentice  bound  out  by  indenture,  is  unconstitu- 
tional. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  constitution  does  not  recognize  the  slavery 
of  a  portion  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  country,  then  by  the  constitution 
and  by  natural  right,  they  may  demand  their  freedom,  and  we  must 
grant  it. 

The  constitution  recognizes  slaves  as  persons,  but  the  southern  slave 
laws  deny  that  the  slave  is  a  person,  and  moke  him  a  thing,  a  chattel  per- 
sonal, in  direct  contradiction  of  the  words  of  the  constitution.  Slavery, 
as  it  exists  now,  is  a  different  thing  from  what  it  was  in  1788.  The 
southern  people  have  changed  its  character,  and  thereby  forfeited  all 
the  right  to  its  protection,  which  they  could  once  have  claimed  under 
the  constitution.  If,  then,  the  constitution  protected  the  slavery  of  1788, 
it  certainly  does  not  that  of  1838. 

But  there  is  a  stronger  argument  yet.  The  Constitution,  art.  1, 
sect.  9,  clause  2,  says,  "  The  privilege  of  the  writ  habeas  corpus  shall 
not  be  suspended  unless  when  in  cases  of  rebellion  or  invasion  the 
public  safety  may  require  it."  The  constitution  does  not  define  what 
is  the  habeas  corpus,  and  in  all  such  cases  the  rule  is  to  adopt  the  defi- 
nition of  the  English  common  law.  I  give  it  as  stated  by  Chancellor 
Kent,  one  of  the  best  authorities  upon  the  subject.  Let  us  then  look 
at  the  case  and  see  what  is  the  writ  habeas  corpus.  "  Every  restraint 
upon  a  man's  liberty  is,  in  the  eye  of  the  law,  imprisonment."  Kent, 
vol.  2,  p.  26.  Therefore  the  slave,  in  the  eye  of  the  law,  is  held  in 
imprisonment  by  his  master.  "  All  persons" — and  the  constitution  calls 
slaves  persons — "  restrained  of  their  liberty  under  any  pretence  what- 
ever are  entitled  to  prosecute  the  writ"  habeas  corpus,  "  unless  they 
be  detained,  (1)  by  process  from  any  court,  or  judge  of  the  United 
States,  having  exclusive  jurisdiction  in  the  case  ;  (2)  or  by  final  judg- 
ment, or  decree,  or  execution  thereon,  of  any  competent  tribunal  of 
civil  or  criminal  jurisdiction,  other  than  in  the  case  of  a  commitment 
for  an  alleged  contempt."  Kent,  vol.  2,  p.  29.  Here,  then,  it  is 


20 

declared  by  the  constitution,  that  any  person,  black  or  white,  who  is 
restrained  of  his  liberty,  unless  he  be  kept  in  prison  awaiting  a  trial, 
or  kept  for  the  execution  of  the  sentence  of  the  court,  has  a  right  to 
the  privilege  of  the  habeas  corpus  writ.  Hence  any  person^  who  is  a 
friend  to  the  slave  may  apply  to  any  court,  having  authority  to  issue 
this  writ,  and  the  court  must  issue  it  against  the  slave-holder,  to  come 
into  court  and  show  by  what  right  he  holds  his  slave.  The  slave-holder 
will  say  he  holds  him  by  the  law  of  the  state  in  which  he  lives.  It 
will  then  be  shown  to  the  court  that  these  very  slave  laws  are  a  sus- 
pension of  the  privilege  of  the  habeas  corpus  writ,  which  the  consti- 
tution says  shall  not  be  suspended.  A  person  who  has  sued  out  the 
writ  habeas  corpus  "  is  to  be  remanded  to  imprisonment  if  he  was  de- 
tained ;  (1)  by  process  of  any  court  of  the  United  States  having 
exclusive  jurisdiction  ;  (2)  by  virtue  of  a  final  decree,  or  judgment,  or 
process  thereon ;  (3)  or  for  contempt  specially  and  plainly  charged;" 
otherwise  he  is  to  be  set  free.  The  slave  is  not  detained  by  any  court 
waiting  his  trial ;  he  is  not  held  for  the  execution  of  any  sentence  of 
a  competent  court  of  civil  or  criminal  jurisdiction;  nor  for  any  con- 
tempt specially  and  plainly  charged  ;  therefore,  by  the  privilege  of  the 
habeas  corpus,  he  must  be  set  free.  It  will  be  shown,  further,  that  in 
the  English  courts,  slaves  can  and  actually  have  claimed  the  privilege 
of  the  habeas  corpus  writ,  and  it  has  been  decided  that  they  are  entitled 
to  their  freedom  by  the  privilege  of  that  writ.  Here,  then,  the  Amer- 
ican constitution  has  established  a  law  by  which  slaves  have  actually 
claimed  and  received  their  liberty  in  England.  It  is  not  very  probable, 
however,  that  any  American  court  would  grant  the  writ  to  the  slave, 
or  decide  in  his  favor,  especially  in  a  slave-holding  district. 

I  admit  that  I  do  not  suppose  that  the  framers  of  the  constitution 
intended  to  secure  the  privilege  of  the  habeas  corpus  to  the  slaves. 
The  fact  is,  they  did  not  think  of  making  any  constitutional  provis- 
ion for  them  in  any  way.  It  did  not  occur  to  them  that  any  could  be 
needed.  There  was  such  a  universal  expectation  that  the  moral  sen- 
timent would  induce  all  men  to  do  what  they  could  to  hasten  the 
emancipation  of  the  slaves,  that  no  one  entertained  a  doubt  that  it  would 
soon  come.  The  framers  of  the  constitution  therefore  avoided,  so  far 
as  possible,  any  reference  to  the  foul  stain  upon  the  nation's  character, 
— and  so  deeply  did  they  feel  the  evil  of  slavery  themselves,  that  they 
did  not  suppose  any  provision  in  the  constitution  could  be  necessary  to 
bind  men,  much  less  to  give  them  leave  to  secure  the  blessings  of  lib- 
erty to  all.  So,  when  we  speak  of  congress  having  the  power  to  abol- 
ish slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  and  the  Territories,  and  to  pro- 
hibit the  internal  slave  trade,  we  do  not  suppose  that  the  framers  of  the 
constitution  thought,  or  intended  to  give  congress  the  special  power  to 
do  these  things.  They  did  not  give  that  power  intentionally,  for  the 
best  of  reasons.  They  supposed  that  slavery  would  be  abolished  by 
other  means,  so  that  there  never  could  be  an  occasion  for  the  exercise 
of  such  a  power,  if  it  were  given. 

But  their  expectation  has  failed.  Slavery  is  not  abolished.  Shall 
not  congress  have  every  power  and  the  slave  every  privilege,  that  the 


21 

most  liberal  construction  of  the  language  of  the  constitution  will  allow  ? 
I  know  that  it  is  a  rule  of  interpretation,  in  law,  that  the  intention  of 
the  law  maker  shall  be  met,  and  that  be  law,  whatever  language  he 
may  have  used  to  express  that  intention.  But  it  is  also  a  rule  of  interpre- 
tation, and  paramount  to  all  others,  that  the  language  of  the  law  maker 
shall  be  so  construed  as  to  make  the  law  as  consistent  with  right  and 
justice  as  possible.  By  this  rule  the  constitution  must  be  so  interpreted 
as  to  allow  the  slave  the  privilege  of  the  habeas  corpus  writ. 

Farther,  all  traffic  in  human  beings  appears  unconstitutional  when 
considered  from  another  point  of  view.  Not  merely  the  internal  slave- 
trade,  but  any  bargain  by  which  a  man  is  sold,  is  unconstitutional. 
The  internal  slave-trade,  and  every  bargain  by  which  man  is  sold,  goes 
upon  the  ground  that  he  is  property.  But  this  is  not  the  doctrine  of 
the  constitution. 

By  the  constitution,  no  man  can  be  owned,  or  bought  and  sold.  It 
speaks  of  persons  '  bound  to  service,'  but  never  of  persons  that  are 
'  owned.'  It  calls  slaves,  persons  ;  and  to  consider  a  person,  a  man,  as 
property,  an  article  of  commerce,  is  such  an  anomaly,  so  inconsistent 
with  the  whole  tenor  of  our  institutions,  that  it  is  not  to  be  done  with- 
out the  most  positive  proof  that  the  framers  of  the  constitution 
intended  it. 

But  there  is  positive  and  conclusive  proof  that  the  framers  of  the 
constitution  did  not  consider  the  slaves  as  property.  They  allow  three 
fifths  of  them  to  be  added  to  the  number  of  the  free  citizens,  in  making 
out  the  apportionment  for  the  number  .of  representatives  in  congress 
and  electors  for  president  and  vice-president.  Now  in  a  government 
like  ours,  founded  upon  the  polls  and  not  upon  the  property  of  the 
citizens,  and  where  all  men  are  recognized  as  free  and  equal,  and  where 
the  poor  and  the  rich  are  to  have  an  equal  influence  in  making  the  laws 
and  choosing  the  rulers  and  officers  of  government,  it  is  certain  that 
the  south  could  not  be  allowed  an  extra  number  of  representatives  in 
congress  on  account  of  their  slaves,  if  the  slaves  were  considered  as 
property.  It  is  as  inconsistent  to  allow  the  south  an  extra  number  of 
representatives  on  account  of  their  having  slaves,  if  their  slaves  are 
property,  as  it  would  be  to  allow  the  north  to  have  an  extra  number  in 
consequence  of  their  sheep  and  cattle,  their  bank  stock,  their  manu- 
facturing capital,  or  property  of  any  kind.  The  founders  of  our  gov- 
ernment would  never  have  allowed  the  principle,  that  people  were  to 
be  represented  in  proportion  to  their  property,  or  for  their  property  in 
any  form.  Yet  this  they  did  do,  if  they  considered  slaves  as  property. 

But  further;  "in  all  our  intercourse  with  foreign  nations,  in  all  our 
treaties  in  which  the  words,  'goods,'  '  effects,'  &c.,  are  used,  slaves 
have  never  been  considered  as  included.  In  all  cases  in  which  slaves 
are  the  subject  matter  of  controversy,  they  are  specially  named  by  the 
word  'slaves,'  and  if  I  remember  rightly,"  and  he  appealed  to  the 
senate  to  correct  him  if  he  were  wrong,  "it  has  been  decided  in  con- 
gress, that  slaves  are  not  property,  for  which  compensation  shall  be 
made  when  taken  for  public  use  (or  rather  slaves  cannot  be  considered 
as  taken  for  public  use)  or  as  property  by  the  enemy  when  they  are  in 


the  service  of  the  United  States."  Senator  Morris  (of  Ohio.)  Speech 
in  senate,  February  9,  1S39. 

If,  then,  the  constitution  does  not  consider  slaves  as  property,  it  con- 
siders them  persons,  and  secures  to  them  personal  rights  ;  and  the  first 
right,  and  the  foundation  of  all  other  rights,  is  one's  right  to  himself. 
If  one  has  a  right  to  himself,  no  one  else  can  have  a  right  to  him  to 
convey  by  sale — therefore  he  cannot  be  sold. 

V.  Let  us  now  see  what  efforts  have  been  made  to  get  rid  of  slavery 
and  do  justice  to  the  oppressed.  These  efforts  are  of  two  kinds:  1. 
Legislative  action  ;  and  2.  Societies. 

1.- All  the  northern  states  have  abolished  slavery.  It  is  worthy  of 
remark,  in  this  connexion,  that  the  states  of  New-Hampshire  and 
Vermont  considered  that  slavery  was  abolished  by  their  constitutions ; 
and  yet  their  constitutions  contained  nothing  more  from  which  such 
an  inference  could  be  drawn,  than  the  constitution  of  Virginia  or  that 
of  the  United  States  does.  This  shows  very  clearly  how  different 
constructions  can  be  put  upon  the  same  language,  according  to  the 
interests  and  inclinations  of  people. 

Let  us  now  see  what  the  national  legislature  has  done  with  regard 
to  slavery. 

Before  1808,  congress  did  all  that  it  could  to  put  a  stop  to  the  foreign 
slave-trade.  By  acts  of  March  22,  1794,  and  May  10,  1800,  citizens 
of  the  United  States  were  forbidden  to  carry  slaves  from  the  United 
States  to  any  other  country,  or  from  one  foreign  country  to  another. 
In  March  2,  1807,  an  act  was  passed  prohibiting,  under  severe  penalties, 
any  person's  importing  slaves  into  the  United  States  after  the  first  day 
of  January,  1808.  Congress  was  forbidden  by  the  constitution  to  have 
done  this  before. 

At  first  sight  this  seems  to  speak  well  of  the  intentions  of  our 
country.  But  when  we  look  a  little  closer  it  appears  rather  different. 
When  we  look  at  the  condition  of  the  slave  population  at  that  time, 
we  see  that  the  time  had  come  when  the  slave-holders  could  dispense 
with  the  foreign  slave-trade  with  very  little,  if  any,  sacrifice  to  the  slave- 
holding  interests  ;  the  time  had  come  when  we  could  raise  our  own 
slaves,  so  as  not  to  need  to  import  them.  Then,  forsooth,  congress 
was  ready  to  put  a  stop  to  the  monstrous  iniquity  of  bringing  slaves 
into  the  country.  Slaves  that  were  raised  here  were  acquainted  with 
work,  understood  our  language,  and  had  been  trained  from  infancy  to 
the  condition  to  which  they  were  doomed  for  life  ;  and  could  be  raised, 
if  the  masters  would  take  a  little  pains  to  encourage  it,  about  as  fast  as 
they  were  wanted,  and  nearly  or  quite  as  cheap  as  they  could  be  imported 
from  Africa,  considering  the  risk  of  a  slaving  expedition. 

But  notwithstanding  we  could  raise  our  own  slaves,  foreign  slaves 
continued  to  be  smuggled  into  the  country.  In  1819,  Mr.  Middleton, 
of  South-Carolina,  estimated  the  number  smuggled  into  the  country 
annually  at  13,000.  Mr.  Wright,  of  Virginia,  thought  that  the  number 
was  as  large  as  15,000.  Middleton  and  Wright  were,  I  believe,  both 
members  of  the  House  of  Representatives  at  that  time,  and  made  the 
above  statements  on  the  floor  of  the  house. 


23 

In  April,  1818,  congress  went  still  further,  and  increased  the  penalties 
of  being  engaged  in  the  foreign  slave-trade,  and  forbid  any  citizen 
being  engaged  in  the  slave-trade  on  board  any  foreign  vessel.  The 
next  year,  1819,  congress  sent  out  armed  vessels  to  the  coast  of  Africa, 
to  stop  the  slave-trade.  In  1820,  congress  passed  an  act  declaring  the 
slave-trade  piracy.  Yes  ;  it  is  piracy  by  the  laws  of  our  land  for  a 
man  to  buy  a  slave  on  the  coast  of  Africa  and  bring  him  here  or  carry 
him  to  any  other  country,  but  it  is  no  crime,  it  is  perfectly  right,  to  buy 
a  slave  in  one  state  and  carry  him  to  another.  What  makes  such  a 
mighty  difference  between  the  waters  of  the  ocean  and  the  soil  of  our 
own  country,  that  what  is  right  on  one  is  a  crime  on  the  other  ? 
Wherein  consists  such  a  difference  between  the  shores  of  Africa  and 
the  capital  of  this  free  republic,  that  what  is  there  the  highest  crime 
that  human  laws  recognize  is  here  innocent  and  protected  by  the  laws  ? 
'Tis  right  to  hold  slaves  upon  our  land,  and  within  sight  of  our  shores, 
but  beyond  them  it  is  a  crime  of  deepest  dye.  'Tis  right  and  proper 
to  buy  negro  slaves  at  Washington,  where  the  freest  people  on  earth 
hold  their  national  councils — but  'tis  piracy  to  buy  them  in  Guinea. 
Is  this  "  to  establish  justice  ?"  Is  it  not  rather  utter  contempt  for  it  ? 
Is  the  moral  sentiment  clean  gone  from  man,  that  he  can  discern  right 
from  wrong  no  better  than  this  ?  Had  the  sable  sons  of  Africa  ever 
made  such  a  mistake  as  this,  there  would  be  some  ground  for  the 
opinion  that  they  were  not  men,  but  a  connecting  link  between  man 
and  brute.  Slavery  would  not  then  be  the  sin  that  it  now  is,  for  no 
moral  nature,  no  image  of  God,  would  have  been  marred  and  lost  by  it. 

This  act  of  1820  is  the  last  act  Congress  has  passed.  Thus  far 
they  have  done  as  near  right  and  justice  as  they  could  afford  to.  The 
next  step  would  interfere  with  the  interests  of  the  country ;  it  would 
require  a  sacrifice  of  gain  and  luxury  that  they  could  not  afford 
the  generosity  and  respect  for  the  rights  of  others  to  make.  Accord- 
ingly they  have  done  nothing  since  but  'gag'  the  people,  and  declare 
that  they  would  do  nothing  more. 

It  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  the  American  vessels  sent  out  in  1819 
to  put  a  stop  to  the  slave  trade,  have  not  taken  a  single  slaver.  Why 
is  this?  While  the  English  vessels  have  been  constantly  taking  sla- 
vers, the  Americans  have  taken  none.  Have  they  leagued  with  the 
pirates,  and  winked  at  their  wrong  doing  ? 

2.  Societies  have  been  formed  from  time  to  time  for  the  purpose  of 
bettering  the  condition  of  the  slave,  or  of  "securing"  to  him  "the 
blessings  of  liberty." 

In  1785  there  was  an  Abolition  Society  formed  in  New- York.  The 
Hon.  John  Jay,  afterwards  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court,  was  presi- 
dent. The  object  of  the  society  was  to  "  promote  the  manumission 
of  slaves,  and  to  protect  such  of  them  as  have  been  or  may  be  libe- 
rated." 

A  similar  society  was  formed  in  Philadelphia  in  1787.  Dr.  Frank- 
lin was  president,  and  Benjamin  Rush  secretary.  Two  years  after, 
one  was  formed  in  Maryland.  Societies  were  also  formed  about  the 
same  time  in  Virginia,  Delaware  and  Connecticut. 


24 

The  principles  entertained  by  these  early  societies  were  so  nearly 
the  same  as  those  entertained  and  upheld  by  the  modern  abolitionists, 
that  I  need  not  here  enter  into  a  specification  of  them. 

In  December,  1816,  the  slave-holding  state  of  Virginia,  feeling  that 
the  presence  of  the  free  blacks  was  a  nuisance,  and  made  their  slaves 
uneasy,  increased  the  danger  of  insurrection,  and  decreased  very  much 
the  value  of  slave  property,  requested  their  governor  to  correspond 
with  the  President  of  the  United  States,  "for  the  purpose  of  obtaining 
a  territory  on  the  coast  of  Africa,  or  some  other  place  not  within  the 
States,  to  serve  as  an  asylum  for  such  persons  as  are  now  free,  or  may 
become  so." 

About  the  same  time  a  meeting  was  held  at  Washington,  to  take  the 
same  subject  into  consideration.  Judge  Washington  was  President. 
The  result  of  the  meeting  was  the  formation  of  the  American  Coloni- 
zation Society.  The  President  and  the  twelve  Managers  of  this  So- 
ciety were,  it  is  believed,  slave-holders.  Their  constitution  declared 
that  "  the  object  to  which  the  attention  of  this  Society  shall  be  exclu- 
sively directed,  is  to  promote  and  execute  a  plan  for  colonizing  the 
free  people  of  color  now  residing  in  our  country." 

There  was  not  a  word  said  about  the  evil,  moral  and  political,  of 
slavery.  There  was  not  even  any  design  to  benefit  the  slave  ;  for  the 
efforts  of  the  Society  were  to  be  directed  exclusively  to  the  free  blacks. 
Of  these  free  blacks  there  are  in  the  United  States  319,467;  and 
2,122  have  been  carried  to  Liberia  in  the  last  eighteen  years.  This 
Society  provides  no  means  for  emancipating  a  single  slave,  and  in  its 
constitution  it  does  not  even  profess  to  aim  at  the  emancipation  of  any. 
They  would  take  all  the  slaves  that  were  freely  given  them  ;  and  they 
actually  did,  in  19  years,  carry  EIGHT  HUNDRED  AND  NINE  manumitted 
slaves  to  Africa — JUST  AS  MANY  AS  WERE  BORN  IN  FIVE  DAYS  AND 
A  HALF  on  an  average.  They  Had,  moreover,  ceased  operation,  so 
that  in  1834  they  did  not  carry  one  single  manumitted  slave  to  Liberia. 
Judge  Washington,  the  first  president  of  the  society,  instead  of  freeing 
his  slaves,  sold  them,  fifty-four  in  number,  to  a  slave-dealer  for  the 
New-Orleans  market. 

I  cannot  spend  any  more  time  upon  the  Colonization  Society  than 
to  show  that  it  cannot  and  does  not  aim  to  free  the  slaves,  but  rather 
to  benefit  the  slave-holder's  property  in  his  slaves.  This,  I  think,  I 
have  abundantly  done. 

*VI.  We  have  thus  far  examined  slavery  as  it  was.  We  have 
looked  at  is  origin,  and  traced  its  history  to  the  present  time.  It  now 
remains  to  consider  the  present  number  and  condition  of  the  slaves  : 
the  influence  of  slavery  upon  us  at  the  north :  our  right  and  duty  to 
do  something  :  what  we  can  do  and  how  to  doit :  the  abolition  enter- 
prise :  the  objections  to  that  enterprise :  the  principles  and  measures  of 
the  abolitionists :  and  finally  notice  the  objections  that  are  brought 
against  immediate  emancipation.  This,  with  what  has  been  already 
said,  will  cover  the  whole  ground. 

*  When  this  Discourse  was  delivered  it  was  found  too  long  for  one  evening,  and  what 
follows  was  delivered  on  the  evening  of  Sunday,  February  24. 


25 

When  the  constitution  of  the  United  States  was  adopted,  there  were 
something  more  than  six  hundred  thousand  slaves  in  the  southern 
states,  and  about  forty  thousand  in  the  northern  states.  Since  that 
time  all  of  the  northern  states  have  emancipated  their  slaves.  But  the 
slaves  have  increased  so  fast  at  the  south  that  notwithstanding  the  de- 
crease at  the  north,  where  the  whites  have  been  fast  increasing,  the 
increase  of  the  slave  population  in  our  country  has  just  about  equalled 
the  increase  of  the  white  population.  Hence  the  slaves  must  increase 
much  faster  than  the  whites  at  the  south.  This  is  one  of  the  most 
alarming  features  of  slavery,  in  a  political  point  of  view.  Soon  the 
south  will  be  full  and  overrun  with  the  slaves,  and  what  can  they  do 
with  them  ?  At  present  t^e  property  is  working  into  the  hands  of  a 
few,  and  the  white  population  retiring  before  the  blacks — and  in  a  few 
years,  we  at  the  north  may  have  to  raise  and  pay  a  standing  army  to 
keep  down  the  insurrections  of  the  slaves. 

The  daily  increase  of  the  slave  population  is  about  ONE  HUNDRED 
AND  SEVENTY-FIVE.  Yes,  there  are  one  hundred  and  seventy-jive  hu- 
man beings  born  into  slavery  in  this  land  of  liberty  every  day  more 
than  go  from  slavery  in  this  world  to  freedom  in  the  next. 

In  the  northern  slave-holding  states,  Virginia  for  instance,  there  is 
not  so  much  demand  for  slave  labor  as  in  the  more  southern  states. 
And  so  they  raise  slaves  for  the  southern  markets,  just  as  we  do  sheep 
and  cattle  for  our  markets,  and  with  about  as  little  regard  to  chastity 
and  the  marriage  contract  among  their  slaves  as  we  have  among  our 
cattle.  The  number  of  slaves  annually  transported  from  the  northern 
slave-holding  states  to  the  southern,  is  about  THIRTY  THOUSAND.  This 
annual  traffic  in  thirty  thousand  human  beings  exists  by  our  sufferance ; 
is  carried  on  by  the  sanction  of  laws  that  we  at  the  north  have  helped 
to  make,  and  mostly  in  the  capital  of  our  country,  over  which  we  at 
the  north  have  joint  control  with  the  south.  Our  own  government 
licenses  man  to  sell  his  brother  man  within  sight  of  thecapitol  of  this 
free  and  Christian  republic  ! 

Let  us  look  at  the  condition  of  the  slave.  I  do  not  wish  to  speak  of 
individual  cases  of  cruelty.  These  you  must  have  heard  to  your  heart's 
content,  already.  Beside,  I  do  not  wish  to  rest  any  argument  upon  such 
cases. 

(1.)  For  the  last  fifty  years  the  condition  of  the  slave  has  been 
growing  worse.  Each  state  has  continually  been  passing  laws  more 
and  more  severe,  and  in  no  case,  so  far  as  I  know,  have  they  relaxed 
their  laws  in  the  least. 

(2.)  The  laws  of  the  slave-holding  states  give  the  slave  no  protec- 
tion against  any  white  person  whatsoever,  any  more  than  the  Jaws  of 
our  state  do  our  horses  and  oxep. ;  To  this  there  is  one  exception ;  if 
it  can  be  proved  that  a  master  has  wilfully,  deliberately  and  mali- 
ciously killed  his  slave,  he  is  punishable  for  murder  as  though  his  vic- 
tim had  been  white,  or  free.  But  then,  no  black  man  can  testify 
against  a  white  man.  Hence  a  man  may  murder  slaves  to  any  extent 
with  impunity,  if  he  only  be  out  of  sight  of  a  white  man.  He  may 
go  on  to  his  plantation  and  mow  them  down  as  he  would  weeds  :  the 


26 

blacks  that  escape  cannot  be  heard,  and  if  there  is  no  white  man 
present  to  prove  the  master's  guilt,  he  may  go  unpunished.  It  is 
often  said  that  the  interest  of  the  master  would  prevent  his  cruelty  to 
his  slaves.  But  we  see  that  the  interest  of  the  northern  farmer  does 
not  prevent  his  cruelty  to  his  cattle  ;  does  not  prevent  his  starving  them, 
and  whipping  them  to  death  in  his  passions,  and  killing  them  when 
they  are  unfit  for  service  ;  no  more  will  it  prevent  the  southern  slave- 
master  from  these  things.  The  interest  of  the  owner  does  not  in  fact 
so  much  protect  the  slave  as  it  does  the  cattle :  for  the  slave  feels  his 
wrong  and  oppression,  and  this  unavoidably  leads  him  to  provoke  the 
rage  of  his  jealous  master  far  more  frequently  than  he  otherwise  would. 
Were  the  slaves  as  insensible  to  their  wrongs  as  brutes  would  be,  they 
would  be  so  submissive  as  to  call  forth  no  more  cruelty  than  the  brutes. 
But  the  master  sees  in  the  eye  of  every  slave  an  expression  of  his 
sense  of  his  wrongs,  and  we  may  well  imagine  the  effect  this  must 
have  upon  the  master's  feelings.  The  drunkard  must  get  drunk  again 
to  drown  the  shame  of  his  former  beastliness.  The  master  who  has 
been  cruel  and  made  his  slaves  feel  their  wrong,  must  continue  to  be 
cruel  to  blot  out  the  recollections  of  former  sufferings  by  pains  of  the 
present  and  the  fears  of  the  future.  It  is  only  by  adding  wrong  to 
wrong,  cruelty  to  cruelty,  that  he  can  keep  his  own  mind  from  realiz- 
ing how  cruel  he  has  been  and  prevent  the  slaves  from  plotting  any  scheme 
of  revenge  or  release. 

(3.)  I  give  here  an  outline  of  the  slave  laws. 

(a)  Slaves  are  the  property  of  the  master  to  all  intents  and  purposes  ; 
just  as  the  horses,  oxen  and  sheep  of  the  northern  farmer  are  the 
farmer's  property.  He,  or  she,  is  subject  to  the  will,  caprice  and  lust 
of  the  master.  They  can  have  no  property.  In  many  states  there  are 
laws  expressly  forbidding  the  slave  to  have  property,  and  thereby  making 
it  impossible  for  them  to  buy  their  liberty,  and  that  is  usually  the]only 
way  they  can  get  it. 

(6)  The  slaves  are  not  only  subjected  to  their  own  masters,  but  to 
other  men.  A  man  may  whip  or  abuse  another's  slave  with  impunity, 
unless  he  unfit  him  for  labor  ;  and  then  his  master  can  recover  damages 
for  loss  of  services.  The  slave  gets  nothing.  In  Louisiana,  if  a  man 
by  his  cruelty  forever  unfits  a  slave  for  labor,  he  must  pay  his  master 
the  value  of  the  slave ;  but  the  unfortunate  slave,  crippled  and 
maimed,  and  suffering  to  the  end  of  his  miserable  life,  can  get  no  com- 
pensation whatever. 

(c)  The  laws  inflict  the  severest  penalties  for  what  in  the  white  man 
is  no  crime.  \  In  Georgia,  any  person  may  give  a  slave  twenty  lashes, 
(which  would  kill  many  a  white  man,)  for  being  found  off  the  planta- 
tion to  which  he  belongs,  for  any  purpose  whatever,  without  a  license. 
In  South-Carolina,  any  person  finding  more  than  seven  slaves  together 
in  the  highway,  without  a  white  man  with  them,  may  give  each  slave 
twenty  lashes.  In  North  Carolina,  a  slave  travelling  without  a  pass, 
or  being  found  in  another  person's  negro  quarters,  or  kitchen,  may  be 
whipped  forty  lashes,  and  every  slave  in  whose  company  he  may  be 
found,  twenty  lashes.  In  Louisiana,  a  slave  for  being  found  on  horse- 


27 

back,  without  written  permission,  incurs  twenty-five  lashes.  These  are 
but  a  few,  but  1  have  time  for  no  more. 

(d)  The  laws  forbid  mental  and  religious  education.  In 
South  Carolina,  any  slaves  that  may  be  found  assembled  in  a 
confined  or  secret  place,  for  the  purpose  of  mental  instruc- 
tion,-even  though  in  presence  of  white  persons,  may  be  whipped  with 
twenty  lashes.  Another  law  imposes  a  fine  of  £100  upon  any  person 
who  may  teach  a  slave  to  write.  The  Virginia  laws  declare  that  any 
school  for  the  instruction  of  slaves,  is  an  unlawful  assembly,  and  any 
justice  may  inflict  twenty  lashes  upon  any  slave  found  in  such  a  school. 
In  North  Carolina,  to  teach  a  slave  to  read  or  write,  or  to  give  him  any 
book  (the  Bible  not  excepted)  is  punishable  with  thirty-nine  lashes,  if  the 
offender  be  a  free  black,  but  if  a  white,  with  a  fine  of  $200.  The  rea- 
son given  for  this  law  is,  that  teaching  slaves  to  read  and  write  tends  to 
excite  dissatisfaction,  and  to  produce  insurrection  and  rebellion.  In 
Georgia,  if  a  white  man  teach  a  free  negro  even,  to  read  or  write,  he  is 
fined  $500.  In  Louisiana,  the  punishment  for  teaching  a  slave  to  read 
or  write,  is  one  year's  imprisonment.  In  Georgia,  any  justice  of  the 
peace  may,  at  his  discretion,  break  up  any  religious  assembly  of  the  slaves, 
and  order  each  slave  present  to  receive  twenty-five  stripes  of  a  whip, 
switch,  or  cow-skin,  on  his  bare  back.  In  South  Carolina,  slaves  may 
not  meet  for  religious  worship  before  sunrise  or  after  sunset,  unless  a 
majority  of  the  meeting  be  white,  without  incurring  the  penalty  of  twenty 
lashes,  well  laid  on.  In  Virginia,  all  evening  meetings  for  slaves,  at  any 
meeting  house,  are  forbidden.  In  Mississippi,  a  master  may  permit  a 
slave  to  attend  the  preaelrng  of  a  luhite  man.  In  South  Carolina,  the 
law  forbids  the  funster's  compelling  the  slave  to  work  more  than  fifteen 
hours  a  day.  The  necessity  for  such  a  law  does  not  speak  very  much 
for  the  humanity  of  the  masters,  or  of  his  interest  being  a  sufficient  pro- 
tection to  the  slave.  In  Tennessee  and  Arkansas,  the  constitution  forbids 
the  legislatures  to  emancipate  the  slaves.  In  some  of  the  states,  Ten- 
nessee for  example,  a  man  cannot  free  his  own  slaves  if  Tie  would,  with- 
out permission  of  the  legislature. 

Now  does  not  the  existence  of  such  laws  forbid  us  to  believe  that 
the  slaves  are  treated  kindly  as  a  general  thing  ?  If '  they  are  treated  with 
kindness,'  and  '  are  contented  with  their  condition,'  and  '  as  well  off  as 
the  poor  laborers  of  the  north,'  why  are  there  such  laws?  In  a  commu- 
nity where  such  laws  are  demanded  and  upheld  by  public  opinion,  the 
slaves  cannot  be  universally  well  treated.  Those  men  who  have  been  to 
the  south,  and  say  that  the  slaves  are  not  cruelly  treated,  must  be  listened 
to  with  caution.  It  may  be  that  they  do  not  consider  such  treatment 
cruelty.  But  their  testimony  in  any  case  can  only  prove  that  they  have 
never  seen  the  cruel  treatment  of  the  slave.  It  cannot  prove  there  is  no 
such  treatment.  They  do  not  see  all  that  there  is.  The  testimony  of 
one  credible  witness  who  has  seen  a  thing  is  worth  more  than  that  of  a 
thousand  who  merely  have  not  seen  it ;  especially  if  we  can  easily  account 
for  their  not  having  seen  it.  The  house  servants  are  the  best,  and  they 
receive  the  best  treatment ;  and  these  it  is  for  the  most  part  that  travellers 
and  sojourners  at  the  south  see.  Hence  they  see  the  best  treatment  of 
the  best  part  of  the  slaves ;  and  this  they  report  as  a  fair  representation 
of  the  condition  of  the  slave  !  Contrast  their  account  with  the  account 


28 

of  those  who  give  the  worst  treatment  of  the  worst  part  of  the  slaves, 
and  a  medium  will  probably  be  about  a  fair  estimate. 

But  I  do  not  wish  to  rest  any  argument  upon  individual  cases  of  cruelty. 
I  wish  merely  to  give  you  an  outline  of  the  system.  This  I  have  done 
by  quoting  from  the  slave  laws — public  documents  that  cannot  be  ques- 
tioned. From  these  you  may  infer  what  the  condition  of  the  slave  must 
be.  It  is  enough  that  he  is  a  slave,  even  in  the  mildest  form  of  slavery. 
We  need  not  appeal  to  individual  cases  of  cruelty,  to  show  us  that  he 
ought  to  be  free. 

It  was  from  a  view  of  this  state  of  things — three  millions  of  their  fellow 
beings,  about  one-fifth  of  the  population  of  the  country,  in  a  condition 
like  what  I  have  described,  and  the  number  increasing  at  the  rate  of  one 
hundred  and  seventy-five  every  day,  and  with  no  one  doing  any  thing  to 
alleviate  the  condition  of  the  oppressed,  or  save  the  country  from  the 
precipice  over  which  it  seemed  to  be  rushing, — it  was,  I  say,  from  a  view 
of  this  state  of  things  that  some  benevolent,  justice-loving  persons  at  the 
north  raised  their  voices  against  this  monstrous  evil. 

I  wish  to  call  particular  attention  to  this  state  of  things ;  for  it  is  some 
times  said  that  the  abolitionists  have  retarded  the  emancipation  of  the 
slaves ;  that  there  were  means  in  operation  that  would  have  abolished 
slavery  sooner  than  it  can  now  be  done,  if  the  abolitionists  had  been 
silent.  This  is  entirely  false.  There  were  no  means  in  operation  that 
even  looked  towards  emancipation.  The  whole  tendency  of  all  the  leg- 
islative proceedings  of  the  slav^-holding  states  had  been  for  twenty  years 
Jast  past,  before  the  abolition  enterprise,  to  make  the  condition  of  the 
slave  more  abject,  more  wretched,  and  to  increase  the  difficulties  of 
emancipation.  The  constitution  of  Arkansas  was  s'o  formed  as  to  with- 
hold the  power  to  emancipate  the  slave  by  legislative  action.  The  con- 
stitution of  Tennessee  was  altered  so  as  to  take  the  power  of  emancipa- 
tion from  ihe  state  legislature.  Louisiana  once  had  a  law  prohibiting 
slave-merchants  bringing  slaves  into  the  state  with  a  view  to  selling  them. 
But  this  law  was  repealed.  Turn  over  the  statute  books  of  the  south  as 
you  will,  and  you  will  find  it  universally  the  case  that  the  most  diabolical 
laws  were  the  latest  ones  that  were  passed,  &  every  year  the  laws  that  were 
passed  become  more  and  more  so.  Thus  there  was  nothing  by  way  of 
legislative  action  that  afforded  the  least  hope,  or  encouragement  to  a  hope, 
that  slavery  would  be  abolished  in  the  southern  states  by  a  regular  course 
of  legislative  actions.  Every  thing  tended  the  other  way. 

Neither  was  there  any  more  encouragement  from  societies  or  individuals 
using  moral  means.  Immediately  after  the  Revolution,  the  people  felt  so 
much  gratitude  for  their  own  success  that  they  determined  to  do  some- 
thing for  the  slaves,  and  secure  eventually  their  freedom.  But  their 
gratitude  soon  grew  cold,  and  there  seemed  to  be,  year  by  year,  less  incli- 
nation to  do  any  thing  to  hasten  the  freedom  of  the  slaves.  No  ;  it  was 
because  nothing  was  being  done  that  the  abolition  enterprise  was  set  on 
foot ;  and  whether  that  enterprise  hasten  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves 
or  not,  it  certainly  cannot  retard  it. 

After  it  was  determined  that  something  ought  to  be  done,  the  question 
arose,  Can  we  at  the  north  do  any  thing  ?  Does  slavery  injure  us  so  as 
to  give  us  reason  to  do  anything  ?  These  questions  need  to  be  answered 
to  the  people  now  as  much  as  they  did  then. 

VII.  What  then  are  some  of  the  evils  that  we  suffer  from  slavery  ? 


The  slave-holding  states  have  twenty-five  representatives,  and  twenty- 
five  electoral  votes  in  choosing  the  president  and  vice-president,  to  which 
they  have  no  right  on  the  ground  that  slaves  are  property.  According 
to  the  present  apportionment,  47,700  inhabitants  constitute  the  represen- 
tative number,  and  each  state  may  send  a  representative  to  congress  for 
every  47,700  inhabitants  it  may  have.  Now  in  making  out  this  appor- 
tionment, three-fifths  of  the  slaves  are  added  to  the  free  population  ; 
and  by  this  arrangement  the  slave-holding  states  have  twenty-five  repre- 
sentatives more  than  they  would  have  if  three-fifths  of  the  number  of 
the  slaves  were  not  added  in  making  out  the  apportionment.  Now  if 
slaves  are  property,  as  the  slave  laws  declare,  the  slave-holders  have  no 
right  to  these  twenty-five  representatives  on  account  of  their  slaves,  any 
more  than  we  at  the  north  have  to  representatives  on  account  of  our 
sheep,  cattle,  bank  stock,  or  any  other  property.  The  expenses  for  pay- 
ing these  representatives  is  at  least  30,000  dollars  each  year,  and  this 
sum  we  help  to  pay.  But  our  proportion  of  this  sum  is  but  a  small  part 
of  the  evil. 

We  thereby  submit  ourselves  to  the  influence  of  southern  legislation. 
We  allow  the  slave-holding  states  to  have  the  influence  of  TWO  HUN- 
DRED THOUSAND  legal  voters,  (and  the  number  is  constantly  increasing,) 
which  they  have  not  got,  in  the  choice  of  the  president  and  vice-presi- 
dent ;  and  of  course  in  every  executive  measure  and  appointment,  and  in 
every  law,  resolution  or  measure  of  congress.  This  influence,  I  say,  we 
allow  the  south  to  have  which  they  have  no  just  right  to  if  their  slaves 
are  property  as  they  consider  them.  Consider  further  the  character  of 
this  influence.  Gov.  M'Duffie,  in  a  message  to  the  legislature  of  South 
Carolina,  said  :  "  No  community  ever  existed  without  domestic  servitude, 
and  we  may  confidently  assert  that  none  ever  will.  In  the  very  nature 
of  things,  there  must  be  classes  of  persons  to  discharge  all  the  diffe.ent 
offices  of  society  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest.  Some  of  these  offices 
are  regarded  as  degrading,  though  they  must  and  will  be  performed. 
When  these  offices  are  performed  by  members  of  the  political  com- 
munity a  dangerous  element  is  obviously  introduced  into  the  body  politic." 
We,  my  hearers,  we  farmers  and  mechanics,  who  labor  with  our  hands, 
are  '  a  dangerous  element  in  the  body  politic'  !  It  is  dangerous  to  allow 
us  to  vote,  and  therefore  we  ought  to  be  slaves  and  let  our  rich  neigh- 
bors vote  for  us.  This  is  'democracy'  !  But  let  us  follow  the  Governor 
a  little  further.  "  It  will  be  fortunate  [?]  for  the  non-slaveholding  states 
if  they  are  not,  in  less  than  a  quarter  of  a  century,  driven  to  the  adoption 
of  a  similar  institution,"  [to  slavery]  "  or  to  take  refuge  from  robbery  and 
anarchy  under  a  military  despotism.  *  *  *  In  a  word,  the  institution 
of  domestic  slavery  supersedes  the  order  of  nobility"  by  creating  the 
slave-holders  themselves  a  nobility  and  the  laborers  the  slaves,  or  serfs,  I 
suppose  must  be  added,  to  make  the  sense  clear.  Mr.  Leigh,  of  Vir- 
ginia, said,  in  1829,  "  I  ask  gentlemen  to  say  whether  they  believe  that 
those  who  depend  on  their  daily  subsistence  can,  or  do  ever,  enter  into 
our  political  affairs?  They  never  do,  never  will,  never  can."  "How 
can  he  get  wisdom,  that  holdeth  the  plough,  that  driveth  oxen,  and  is 
occupied  in  the  labors,  and  whose  talk  is  of  bullocks  ?"  asks  Professor 
Dew,  of  William  and  Mary's  College,  Virginia. 

Are  these  our  principles,  or  have  we  so  much  sympathy  with  and  love 
for  them,  that  we  wish  to  have  those  whose  exalted  notions  may  aspire 


30 

to  and  adopt  such  principles  and  feelings,  make  laws  for  us  ?  Are  we 
submitting  to  southern  legislation  already  ?  Are  we  resigning 
the  legislative  power  into  their  hands  from  a  conviction  of  their 
superior  wisdom  and  patriotism  ?  We  give  them  twenty-five  represen- 
tatives, the  influence  of  two  hundred  thousand  legal  voters,  as  a  consid- 
eration for  such  views,  for  such  superior  political  wisdom,  for  such 
elevated,  humane  democracy ! 

The  Hon.  Charles  Shepard,  member  of  congress  from  North-Carolina, 
in  a  letter  to  his  constituents,  December  20,  1838,  says,  if  the  slave-hold- 
ing states  will  be  true  to  themselves  "  they  can  give  laws  to  the  govern- 
ment." Yes,  brethren  of  New-England,  whose  fathers  fought  and  bled 
ior  our  liberties  in  the  Revolution,  the  aristocratic  slave-holding  south,  who 
hold  that  all  labor  is  disreputable,  and  that  every  laborer,  every  farmer 
and  mechanic,  are,  or  should  be  slaves,  subject  to  the  will  of  the  monied 
few,  boast  that  they  '  can  give  laws  to  the  government.'  Such  men  boast 
that  they  can  make  laws  for  us.  Good  God  !  shall  it  be  so  ?  Are  we  will- 
ing to  wear  the  yoke  and  the  chain  ?  Will  you  dance  to  the  cracking  of 
the  master's  whip?  Are  we  prepared  to  see  our  wives  and  daughters 
prostituted  before  our  eyes — as  the  wives  and  daughters  of  the  Africans 
now  are  at  the  south  ?  Parents  and  children,  husbands  and  wives, 
brothers  and  sisters,  will  you  consent  to  be  torn  from  one  another,  and 
be  subjected  to  the  avarice,  the  cruelty,  and  the  lust  of  a  merciless  owner  ? 
This  is  what  the  Africans  now  suffer,  and  this  is  what  the  southerners 
think  ought  to  be  our  condition,  and  boast  that  they  can  make  our  laws. 
It  is  no  wonder  that  they  call  us  '  dough-faced  northerners'  while  we  are 
insensible  to  such  threats.  They  turn  to  us,  and  say,  'Don't  stir;  if  you 
do  we'll  dissolve  the  Union':  they  then  turn  to  the  south  and  say,  '  Come 
on  my  boys,  we'll  chain  every  one  of  the  northern  dough-faces  ;  we'll 
give  laws  to  the  government ;  we'll  be  lords  and  they  shall  work  for  us. 

Again,  we  are  bound  by  the  constitution,  to  go  ourselves  to-morrow  or 
any  day  when  we  may  be  called  for,  to  uphold  slavery  by  force.  Southern 
men  have  boasted  that  we  are  obliged  to  go  and  put  down  their  slaves 
if  they  should  rebel.  Herein,  they  confess,  is  their  only  hope  of  safety. 
They  cannot  take  care  of  themselves  without  us.  It  is  strange  that  our 
fathers,  while  they  were  yet  smarting  from  the  wounds  of  the  Revolution, 
should  have  bound  themselves  to  assume  a  more  unjust  position  to  the 
Africans  than  England  had  assumed  to  us — and  that  they  should  have 
bound  themselves  to  go  and  butcher  the  Africans  for  acting  the  very  same 
part  against  oppression  which  they  themselves  had  won  so  much  glory  in 
acting. 

Slavery  interferes  with  our  representatives  in  congress.  It  exposes 
them  to  assassination  and  duels  for  discharging  their  official  duties.  The 
Hon.  John  Q,.  Adams  said,  in  the  house  of  representatives,  that  he  had 
received  threats  of  assassination  and  challenges  to  a  duel,  as  often  as 
once  a  day  for  a  number  of  weeks,  and  this  too  for  discharging  his  duty 
as  a  representative.  Say,  New-Hampshire,  does  slavery  do  you  no  harm, 
when  it  has  made  one  of  your  representatives,  one  of  the  men  you  had 
trusted  with  your  honor  and  your  rights,  condescend  to  an  act  that  will 
make  the  name  of  Atherton  stink  till  'tis  forgotten  ?  Ask  the  wife  and 
children  of  the  murdered  Lovejoy  if  we  suffer  nothing  from  slavery  ? 
Ask  the  many  who  have  been  mobbed  and  whipped,  tarred  and  feathered, 


31 

and  murdered  even,  for  being,  or  being  suspected  of  being,  abolitionists 
— ask  them  the  question.  Do  we  suffer  nothing  from  the  existence  of 
slavery  at  the  south  ? 

The  very  fact  that  persons  at  the  north  dare  not,  or  cannot  with 
safety,  speak  their  opinions,  proves  that  we  do  suffer  more  evils  from 
slavery  than  we  who  are  in  the  midst  of  them  can  specify.  Did  we  surfer 
nothing  from  slavery  there  would  be  no  opposition  to  a  free  discussion  of 
the  subject.  It  is  the  wounded  bird  that  flutters.  So  great  is  the  oppo- 
sition to  a  discussion  of  the  subject,  that  one  may  not  breathe  the  word 
'LIBERTY'  to  the  north  wind  even,  lest  it  whistle  tones  of  freedom  on  the 
southern  plantations.  The  fact  that  congress  dares  not,  or  will  not,  per- 
mit among  themselves  the  discussion  of  a  question  of  the  most  vital  im- 
portance to  our  government,  nor  allow  the  people  to  petition  them  upon 
it,  is  the  most  alarming  thing  to  every  good  citizen  that  could  well  be 
presented. 

1  will  not  undertake  to  specify  the  evils  we  suffer  from  the  existence 
of  slavery  in  our  country.  It  would  be  like  counting  the  sands  of  Sahara 
to  prove  that  they  are  numerous. 

It  is  no  uncommon  thing  that  the  free  black  citizens  of  the  north  are 
taken,  under  false  pretences,  and  sold  into  slavery.  Every  black  citizen 
that  may  go  on  board  a  vessel,  in  any  capacity  whatever,  is  imprisoned, 
fined,  sold  into  slavery,  one  or  more  of  them,  whenever  the  vessel  touches 
upon  the  coast  of  a  slave  holding  state.  The  pretence  for  these  Jaws  is,  that 
the  presence  of  free  blacks  makes  the  slaves  discontented  (what,  the  '  hap- 
py,' '  contented'  slave  discontented  !)  and  exposes  the  southerners  to  an 
insurrection  of  the  slaves.  We  have  in  our  free  states  many  black  mer- 
chants who  own  merchant  vessels,  manned  completely  by  free  blacks. 
Now,  one  of  these  vessels  cannot  trade  with  any  southern  port.  If  one 
of  them  should  be  driven  into  a  slave  holding  port  by  storm,  or  from  any 
necessity  whatever,  every  man  on  board  would  be  sold  into  slavery. 

Any  one  must  be  very  ignorant  of  the  political  history  of  this  country 
not  to  see  the  influence  of  the  domineering  spirit  of  the  south.  When 
they  cannot  carry  their  measures  by  fair  and  reasonable  means,  they  will 
resort  to  any  means  to  carry  their  point.  Take  an  illustration.  In  the 
house  of  representatives,  on  the  21st  of  Dec.  1837,  when  Mr.  Slade  of 
Vt.  was  speaking  upon  slavery,  and  dissecting  it  before  the  eyes  of  the 
house,  the  southern  members  determined  to  put  him  down  through  the 
instrumentality  of  the  speaker,  and  after,  resorting  to  every  means  to  put 
him  down  with  a  show  of  order  and  respect  for  the  rules  of  the  house, 
and  failing  in  that,  several  southern  members  demanded  the  south- 
ern delegations  to  retire  from  the  hall.  The  speaker  was  driven  to  sus- 
pend the  rules  of  the  house,  and  the  discussion  was  stopped  by  a  mob  of 
the  southern  members  of  the  house  of  representatives.  On  the  next 
morning  was  presented  and  carried  Patton's  resolution  against  '  reading, 
referring,  printing  or  acting  upon  petitions'  concerning  slavery. 

Thus  when  the  southern  delegations  in  the  house  could  carry  their 
point  by  no  other  means,  they  would  resort  to  a  mob.  Some  of  our 
northern  men,  wishing  to  have  the  south  lie  quiet  as  a  stepping  stone  for 
them  to  ascend  upon  to  office,  have  mortgaged  themselves  to  the  south 
and  to  slavery.  Others  are  too  quiet,  too  much  lovers  of  order  and  the 
Union,  to  make  any  resistance.  The  south  are  united  upon  the  subject 


of  slavery,  and  are  determined  to  sacrifice  everything  that  will  not  with 
itself  involve  them  in  ruin,  to  slavery.  It  is  not  so  much  an  idol  that 
they  worship  as  a  mistress  that  they  keep,  and  by  whose  charms  they  are 
bound  and  made  willing  to  do  any  desperate  acts,  to  sacrifice  principle, 
humanity  and  all,  whatsoever  she  may  demand.  We,  rather  than  have 
any  'fuss'  about  it,  while  we  are  the  majority,  consent  to  a  political  non- 
existence,  or  exist  only  to  subserve  them.  The  child  rules  the  tame  sub- 
missive father. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  the  agitation  of  the  subject  of  slavery  will 
be  dangerous  to  our  country.  It  may  be.  It  is  sometimes  the  case 
that  the  amputation  of  a  limb  kills  the  patient.  But  then  he  could  not 
have  lived  long  without  the  operation,  and  in  that  was  his  only  hope. 
But  so  far  from  considering  the  agitation  of  this  subject  dangerous  to 
the  country,  am  I,  that  I  believe  it  will  be  one  of  the  most  effectual 
means  of  saving  it.  It  will  be  as  salt  to  the  corrupt  and  corrupting  mass 
of  public  sentiment.  I  do  verily  believe  that  the  amount  of  moral  sen- 
timent that  will  be  called  out  and  nurtured  into  being  by  the  abolition 
enterprize  will  be  a  prop,  and  so  far  as  I  can  see,  almost  the  only  prop 
to  our  tottering  republic.  Great  subjects  call  forth  great  men  and  all  the 
greatness  of  little  men.  If  there  be  not  something  set  on  foot  to  call  out 
and  exalt  the  moral  sentiment  of  the  nation  and  raise  us  above  political 
intrigue,  selfish  grasping,  and  the  gambling  speculations  so  rife  in  this 
country,  it  is  as  sure  as  fate  that  the  doom  of  our  country  is  sealed.  Who 
has  witnessed  the  progress  of  affairs  for  the  last  few  years  without  being 
sick  at  heart  from  seeing  so  much  deadness  of  the  moral  and  religious 
sentiment?  We  have  confidence  in  the  honesty  and  integrity  of  men  no 
farther  than  it  is  for  their  interest  to  be  honest  and  upright ;  and  there 
are  hardly  any  men  in  whom  it  would  be  safe  to  put  any  further  confi- 
dence. Unless  something  can  be  done  to  arrest  this  downward  onrush 
of  the  people,  the  days  of  our  republic  are  numbered.  Unless  something 
can  be  done  to  purify  the  moral  atmosphere  and  restore  integrity  and 
patriotism,  we  may  prepare  the  dirge  of  our  institutions,  for  it  must  soon 
be  sung. 

Now  there  is  no  subject  before  the  American  people  that  reaches  down 
so  deep  into  principle  and  righteousness,  and  will  interest  so  deeply  so 
many  people  as  abolition.  I  hope  and  trust  this  subject,  will  take  such 
hold  upon  their  hearts  that  it  will  raise  them  above  selfishness,  above 
avarice,  above  grasping  at  the  spoils  of  political  victory,  and  the  bribery 
and  corruption  that  is  everywhere  practiced  upon  the  franchise  of  this 
people,  to  something  near  the  virtues  of  the  fathers  of  the  Revolution. 
If  this  or  something  else  does  not  raise  us,  as  a  people,  our  fate  is  certain. 
As  sure  as  day  follows  night,  and  the  revolving  earth  brings  round  the 
hasty  years,  so  sure  scenes  of  dissolution,  anarchy  and  bloodshed  from 
which  the  sickened  imagination  turns  gasping  for  breath,  must  come  up- 
on us,  unless  something  be  done  to  exalt  &  purify  the  moral  &  religious  sen- 
timent of  the  people.  A  nd  if  these  scenes  do  come,  woe  to  those  who  must 
witness  them.  Extremes  meet,  and  we  shall  go  to  despotism  more  abso- 
lute and  galling  than  the  sun  now  shines  upon.  All  the  noble  and  vir- 
tuous in  the  land  will  prefer  liberty  in  heaven  to  slavery  on  earth,  and  will 
rejoice  in  an  occasion  to  fall  honorably  beneath  the  destroying  sword, 
while  the  more  timid  and  weaknerved  will  have  their  lips  sealed  and  their 


33 

hands  bound  till  the  fires  of  resentment  smoulder  their  hearts  to  cinders, 
and  their  souls  are  freed  by  death.  Oh !  that  1  had  a  voice  that  could 
be  heard  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  country,  I  would  not  cease  day 
nor  night  to  sound  the  alarm.  Every  word  should  be  a  dagger-thrust  at 
the  heart  of  the  monster  slavery,  that  has  tapped  our  veins  and  is  sucking 
the  life-blood  of  our  country.  Yet,  notwithstanding  all  these  evils  that 
we  now  suffer,  and  all  that  the  lowering  prospect  threatens,  we  hug  the 
porcupine  slavery  to  our  bosoms  while  the  blood  is  streaming  from  an  hun- 
dred wounds.  Said  the  Greek  poet,  '-'whom  the  gods  intend  to  ruin 
they  first  make  insane" — and  is  not  the  insanity  of  our  nation  upon  this 
subject  but  the  prelude  to  coming  ruin  ?  When  I  look  at  this  state  of 
things,  I  rejoice  to  know  that  Washington,  Franklin,  Jay,  Pinckney,  Hen- 
ry and  Jefferson  are  in  their  graves.  1  rejoice  to  feel  sure  that  they  have 
finished  their  voyage  of  life  in  safety  ;  that  they  are  beyond  the  danger 
of  corruption ;  that  their  sainted  names  cannot  be  tainted  by  the  mean- 
ness and  corruption  of  our  age.  But  my  joy  has  somewhat  of  sadness ; 
for  it  does  seem  that  if  those  noble  spirits  were  with  us,  corruption  would 
blush  and  flee  their  presence.  It  does  seem  that  they  might  again  breathe 
life  and  energy  into  our  sick  and  shattered  institutions.  It  does  seem 
that  they  might  raise  us  from  wallowing  in  corruption.  But  well  for 
them  the  grave  will  not  give  up  its  dead.  Their  bodies  must  sleep  in 
silence  and  peace  ;  and  if  one  ever  wishes  that  the  dead  should  not  know 
what  the  living  do,  it  is  now.  When  I  contemplate  the  statue  of  Wash- 
ington, as  it  stands  in  simple  majesty,  witnessing  these  things  that  are  now 
witnessed  in  our  country,  I  seem  to  see  a  bloody  sweat  roll  down  that 
pallid  face — I  pause — and  wonder  that  the  very  marble  does  not  break 
silence  and  shake  the  Capitol  with  the  thunder  of  its  rebuke. 

I  do  not  wish  to  be  a  prophet  of  evil.  I  do  not  wish  to  disturb  the 
silence  and  quiet  that  hangs  over  the  unknown  future  ;  else  I  could  draw 
a  picture,  which  should  want  nothing  of  probability,  that  would  make 
your  blood  curdle  in  your  veins.  But  the  future  is  all  uncertain.  We 
commit  it  to  God.  It  will  be,  under  his  providence,  what  we  make  it. 
Now  is  ever  the  pivot  upon  which  the  whole  future  turns  at  our  will.  It 
is  for  us  to  decide  whether  we  will  have  the  south  a  slaughter-house  for 
our  friends  and  neighbors.  It  is  for  us  to  decide  whether  the  south  must 
be  drenched  with  blood,  and  its  fair  fields  become  a  pool  of  bloody  mire, 
stagnating  in  voiceless  desolation. 

Now,  will  any  one  say  that  we  must  suffer  all  these  things — see  all 
this  crime  and  cruelty,  and  can  do  nothing  ?  Will  any  one  say  that  we, 
citizens  of  this  free  country — we  who  make  the  laws,  must  suffer  such 
things  by  the  laws,  and  can  have  no  redress,  we  free  men  ?  Are  we  then 
free,  or  the  subjects  of  despotism  ?  It  matters  not  whether  it  be  a  man 
called  '  Despol,'  or  a  piece  of  parchment  called  'Constitution,'  or  an  insti- 
tution called  '  Slavery,'  that  binds  us,  if  so  be  we  are  bound.  But  the 
case  is  not  so  bad  as  that.  We  can  do  something.  We  have  both  po- 
litical and  moral  rights  to  exercise  in  the  case. 

And  have  justice  and  humanity  no  claims  upon  us,  that  we  wait  to  be 
moved  by  considerations  of  self  interest  to  take  the  part  of  the  oppressed 
and  do  him  justice  ?  Are  we  absolved  from  the  obligation  to  "  remem- 
ber those  that  are  in  bonds  as  bound  with  them;  and  those  who 


34 

suffer  adversity  as  being  ourselves  yet  in  the  flesh,"  and  therefore  capa- 
ble of  a  fellow-feeling  for  their  sufferings  ? 

VIII.  It  is  the  common  understanding,  that  the  slaves  are,  by  the 
constitution  of  the  United  States,  recognized  as  rightful  property,  and 
that  the  slave  laws  are  agreeable  to  that  instrument.  I  hardly  hope 
to  carry  my  audience  with  me,  in  the  attempt  that  I  have  made  to 
prove  that  the  slave  laws  are  unconstitutional.  It  seemed  too  much 
for  me  to  believe  at  first  myself.  But  I  could  see  no  defect  in  the  ar- 
gument, and  was  obliged  to  yield  my  assent.  But  this  is  not  the  com- 
mon opinion.  I  will  therefore  waive  that  consideration  for  a  few  mo- 
ments, and  take  the  subject  upon  the  common  understanding  of  the 
matter,  and  ask  the  question,  What  can  we  do  for  the  emancipation  of 
the  slaves  ? 

We  are  slave-holders  ourselves,  and  we  can  free  those  we  hold.  We 
hold  twenty-six  thousand  slaves  ourselves,  by  the  laws  that  we  make, 
in  the  District  of  Columbia,  and  in  the  United  States'  territories. 
These  twenty-six  thousand  slaves,  I  say,  we  hold  in  bondage  ourselves 
by  the  laws  we  have  made  and  can  repeal.  They  are  held  by  the  laws 
of  congress.  Now  majorities  always  rule,  and  the  free  states  have  and 
have  always  had  a  majority  in  congress — therefore  they  could  have 
prevented  or  enacted  any  law  upon  which  they  should  be  united  in 
their  action.  Thus  it  is  that  the  free  states  and  every  voter  of  the 
free  states  are  individually  responsible  for  holding  these  slaves  ;  there- 
fore it  is  that  every  citizen  of  us  is  a  slave-holder.  Now  the  free  states 
have  a  majority  in  congress,  and  congress  can  abolish  slavery  in  the 
District  of  Columbia  and  the  Territories,  and  the  internal  slave  trade, 
and  therefore  the  free  states  are  responsible  for  the  sin  of  holding  these 
twenty-six  thousand  slaves,  and  for  the  traffic  in  thirty  thousands  of 
our  own  inhabitants  every  year.* 

We  can  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  The  constitu- 
tion says  that  congress  shall  "have  exclusive  power  to  legislate  in  all 
cases  whatsoever"  over  the  District  of  Columbia.  If  now  the  aboli- 
tion of  slavery  be  within  the  sphere  of  legislative  action,  the.  power  to 
abolish  it  is  here  granted  to  congress.  Now  to  prove  that  the  abolition 
of  slavery  is  within  the  sphere  of  legislative  action,  we  have  the  au- 
thority derived  from  all  the  northern  states,  the  South  American  re- 
publics, and  the  kingdoms  of  Europe.  If  congress  cannot  abolish 
slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia  and  the  territories,  then  no  legis- 
lative body  can — it  cannot  be  done — and  here  we  have  the  anomaly  of 
the  people,  where  the  people  are  sovereign,  suffering  an  evil  which  they, 
the  sovereign  authority,  cannot  remove — and  are  not  allowed  to  act 
upon. 

It  is  sometimes  said,  that  Maryland  and  Virginia  may  have  made 

*  If  a  bill  should  be  passed  abolishing  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia  and  the  United 
States'  territories,  and  the  internal  slave  trade,  the  president  would  have  the  power  of  veto 
upon  it,  and  that  would  probably  defeat  the  bill  if  he  should  exercise  it,  since  the  bill  could 
not  be  carried  by  a  majority  of  two-thirds  of  both  houses.  I  take  no  notice,  however,  of  presi- 
dent Van  Buren's  pledge  to  oppose  any  such  bill,  as  he  would  doubtless  change  his  mind 
when  he  saw  a  majority  of  the  voters  in  the  nation  were  in  favor  of  the  bill.  He  is  a  demo- 
crat, and  has  too  much  respect  for  the  opinion  of  the  people  ever  to  oppose  it. 


35 

some  reservation  of  the  control  over  slavery  in  this  territory  when  they 
ceded  it  to  the  general  government.  But  they  made  no  such  reserva- 
tion. They  could  not ;  for  congress  had  no  right  to  allow  it.  It  would 
have  been  a  violation  of  the  express  language  of  the  constitution  to 
have  allowed  any  reservation  of  legislative  authority  whatever,  or  to 
have  consented  to  any  condition  by  which  the  authority  of  congress 
should  be  in  any  way  abridged.  . 

It  is  further  said,  that  it  would  be  a  breach  of  faith  to  abolish  slave- 
ry in  the  District  of  Columbia,  while  Maryland  and  Virginia  are  slave- 
holding  states.  But  there  certainly  is  no  breach  of  faith  in  the  exer- 
cise of  power  given  knowingly,  and  with  the  expectation  that  it  would 
be  exercised  if  there  should  be  occasion.  When  Maryland  and  Yir- 
ginia  resigned  into  the  hands  of  congress  all  legislative  authority  over 
the  District  of  Columbia,  they  knew  that  they  were  giving  them  au- 
thority to  abolish  slavery  in  that  District,  if  congress  should  see  fit  to 
do  it ;  and  it  certainly  can  be  no  breach  of  faith  to  exercise  that  au- 
thority. 

2.  Again,  congress  has  the  authority  to  abolish  the  internal  slave-trade. 
The  constitution  says  that  "  congress  shall  have  power  to  regulate 
commerce  between  the  states."  Now  while  slaves  are  considered  as  prop- 
erty, they  are  articles  of  commerce.  It  is  said  that  congress  may 
regulate  commerce,  but  not  abolish  it.  True.  But  then  to  abolish  or 
prohibit  the  traffic  in  one  article — and  slaves  are  but  one  article — is  not 
to  abolish  commerce  itself,  but  to  regulate  it.  Had  the  language  of 
the  constitution  been  such  as  to  give  congress  the  power  to  regulate 
the  slave  trade  between  the  states,  there  might  have  been  some  room 
to  say  that  congress  might  regulate,  but  could  not  abolish,  the  slave 
trade.  But  while  the  slave  trade  is  only  a  part  of  the  commerce  be- 
tween the  states,  which  congress  has  power  to  regulate,  congress  may 
regulate  the  whole  by  abolishing  or  cutting  off  a  part. 

Congress  has  precisely  the  same  power — it  is  given  in  the  same  lan- 
guage and  in  the  same  clause  of  the  constitution — to  abolish  the  inter- 
nal slave  trade  that  it  had  to  abolish  the  foreign  slave  trade.  The  na- 
tion promised  that  congress  should  not  abolish  the  foreign  slave  trade 
before  1808.  But  by  this  very  promise  they  declared  that  congress 
would  have  had  the  power  to  have  done  it,  if  there  had  been  no  such 
promise.  When  the  promise  was  out,  they  did  exercise  their  power  and 
forbid  the  importation  of  slaves.  Here  congress  have  virtually  declared 
by  their  own  act,  that  they  understand  that  they  have  the  power  to 
abolish  the  internal  slave  trade. 

Here,  then,  in  these-  two  ways,  we,  every  citizen  of  us,  have  the  un- 
questionable political  right  to  do  something  for  the  abolition  of  slavery. 
I  know  that  men  are  exceedingly  fond  of  insisting  upon  our  national 
legislature's  being  one  of  '  limited  powers'  when  the  subject  of  slavery 
is  brought  before  them.  But  they  may  deceive  themselves,  or  the 
people,  to  their  own  infamy,  so  long  as  they  please.  The  light  is 
streaming  abroad  over  the  country,  and  we  trust  that  '  the  sober  second 
thought  of  the  people  will  be  right  and  efficient.'  Time  will  bring 
the  matter  straight,  and  well  is  it  for  him  who  is  beforehand  with  time 
in  this  matter. 


36 

But  I  do  not  feel  content — it  will  not  be  doing  justice  to  my  own 
conviction,  to  leave  the  matter  here — to  leave  our  sphere  of  political 
action  thus  circumscribed  within  such  narrow  bounds.  I  will  not  go 
about  to  prove  that  congress  has  the  power  to  abolish  slavery  in  the 
states ;  for  that  would  be  granting  that  slavery  is  constitutional.  I 
will  enter  into  no  argument  to  prove  that  it  is  right  for  the  national 
legislature — that  it  has  the  power — to  do  justice — to  give  the  inhabit- 
ants their  dues.  If  the  slave-laws  and  slave  trade  are  unconstitutional, 
as  I  believe  and  think  I  have  clearly  shown  above,  then  we  through 
congress  not  only  have  the  power  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  states,  but 
it  is  our  duty  so  to  do.  If  the  masters  oppress  the  slaves  unconstitu- 
tionally— if  they  have  taken  away  their  constitutional  rights  and  priv- 
ileges— then  we  are  bound  as  citizens  to  take  the  part  of  the  slave,  and 
see  that  that  justice  which  the  constitution  guarantees  to  him  be  done 
him.  No  one  will  deny  but  what  we  are  bound  to  go  and  suppress 
an  insurrection  of  the  slaves,  if  there  should  be  one.  No  one  will  deny 
but  what  we  are  bound  to  go  and  protect  the  master  against  the  slave, 
and  are  we  not  as  much  bound  (I  speak  politically)  to  protect  the  slave 
against  the  master,  and  see  that  the  master  does  not  take  away  his 
rights  ?  How  exceedingly  fond  people  are  of  speaking  of  their  lim- 
ited powers  and  means  when  they  are  indisposed  to  use  them !  I  do 
most  sincerely  believe,  that  we,  as  citizens,  are  bound,  by  a  fair  inter- 
pretation of  our  political  duties  and  the  engagements  made  by  the  con- 
federative  constitution,  to  go  and  demand  that  the  slaves  should  have 
every  right  and  privilege  secured  to  them,  either  expressly  or  impliedly, 
by  a  fair  construction  of  the  language  and  principles  of  the  constitu- 
tion, and  that  until  we  do  this  the  sin  of  slave-holding  in  all  its  mag- 
nitude is  chargeable  upon  us. 

We  are  just  as  much  bound  to  protect  the  inhabitants  of  our  coun- 
try from  illegal  oppression  within  the  borders  of  our  own  country,  as 
we  should  be  if  they  were  thus  oppressed  in  a  foreign  country.  When 
some  three  score  of  our  citizens  were  enslaved  in  Algiers,  we  waged 
war  against  that  power  to  protect  our  citizens ;  but  now,  while  three 
millions  are  enslaved  in  our  own  country,  we  are  not  ready  to  do  any 
thing,  and  are  told  that  we  can  do  nothing.  But  be  not  deceived,  God 
will  not  judge  according  to  men's  judgment. 

But  for  those  who  are  not  prepared,  as  yet,  to  go  the  length  of  the 
above  statement,  I  would  say  that  we  have  an  undoubted  moral  right 
to  think  and  speak  and  exert  our  moral  influence.  We  have  an  unde- 
niable right  to  convince  the  southern  slave-holders  that  they  are  com- 
mitting a  sin  in  holding  their  fellow  beings  in  bondage. 

Thomas  Jefferson  wrote  in  August,  1785,  to  Dr.  Price,  of  England, 
to  have  him  interpose  and  exert  all  the  moral  influence  he  could. 
"Could  you,"  says  he,  "  trouble  yourself  with  our  welfare,  no  man  is 
more  able  to  give  aid  than  yourself."  "Be  not  discouraged.  North- 
ward of  the  Chesapeake  you  may  find  here  and  there  an  opponent  to 
abolition,  as  you  may  find  here  and  there  a  robber  and  a  murderer,  but 
in  no  great  numbers."  He  calls  the  abolition  cause  "  an  interesting 
spectacle  of  justice  in  conflict  with  avarice  and  oppression."  I  take 


37 

pleasure  in  quoting  an  authority  justly  held  in  so  high  an  estimation. 
If,  then,  it  was  right  for  a  foreigner  to  interfere  and  exert  a  moral  in- 
fluence, it  certainly  must  be  so  for  our  own  citizens. 

If  we  have  no  political  right  or  duty  to  interfere  with  slavery  in  the 
southern  states,  AVC  certainly  have  a  moral  and  religious  right.  We 
have  the  same  right  that  Jesus  had  to  cleanse  the  temple,  which  the 
Jews  had  made  a  den  of  thieves.  We  have  the  same  right  that  Paul 
had  to  preach  against  the  fornication  of  the  Corinthians  and  the  idola- 
try of  Ephesus  and  Athens. 

It  would  be  much  better  for  us  to  go  to  the  south  and  preach  our 
doctrines  there.  But  they  will  not  hear  us.  They  will  not  allow  a 
word  to  be  said  in  public  against  their  favorite  institution. 

Senators  White  and  Grundy,  from  Tennessee,  declared  in  the  senate 
chamber  that  they  would  encourage  the  Lynch  laws  being  executed 
upon  every  abolitionist  found  in  their  state.  White  defended  the 
whipping,  with  twenty  lashes,  one  Amos  Dresser,  without  any  law  to 
justify  it,  and  without  trial  by  jury,  merely  for  being  an  abolitionist, 
when  it  was  not  proved  and  could  not  be  proved  that  he  had  said,  or 
that  he  intended  to  say,  a  word  upon  the  subject  in  the  state.  Senator 
Lumpkin,  from  Georgia,  said  that  if  abolitionists  went  to  Georgia  "  they 
would  get  caught."  Preston,  of  South-Carolina,  said  that  "  if  an  abo- 
litionist came  within  their  borders,  they  would  hang  him,  notwithstand- 
ing the  opposition  of  the  United  States  and  all  the  governments  on 
earth."  If,  then,  we  cannot  apply  our  remedy  to  the  diseased  part,  it 
must  be  taken  into  the  system  by  the  mouth,  and  we  must  trust  to  the 
general  circulation  to  carry  it  to  the  diseased  part.  But  we  are  by  no 
means  free  from  the  disease  ourselves.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  the 
hand  or  the  foot  being  completely  decayed  and  the  man  suffer  no  harm. 
All  the  members  sympathize  with  the  diseased  part. 

But  although  the  south  will  not  allow  one  to  preach  against  slavery 
there,  there  are  a  great  many  abolitionists  at  the  south.  Their  number 
is  increasing  fast.  Some  of  the  most  zealous  and  effective  abolitionists 
were  once  southern  slave-holders, — men  and  women  of  the  highest 
standing  among  their  citizens.  Among  them  are  James  G.  Birney, 
formerly  Solicitor  General  of  Alabama;  A.  E.,and  S.  Grimke,  whose 
brother,  the  Hon.  Thomas  S.  Grimke,  was  one  of  the  most  prominent 
men  of  South-Carolina.  There  are  hundreds  of  others  at  the  south. 
Their  names  are  not  given  to  the  public,  for  that  would  expose  them  in 
their  lives  and  property.  No,  it  is  not  safe  for  one  to  think  as  he  pleases, 
on  some  subjects,  in  this  free  country. 

IX.  Perceiving  these  spheres  of  influence  open  to  them,  some  friends 
of  liberty,  justice  and  humanity,  commenced  the  abolition  enterprise  ; 
and  although  it  seems,  to  the  impatient  hopes  of  the  zealous,  to  be  a 
slow  movement,  yet  its  rapidity  and  success  are  hardly  equalled  by  the 
rapidity  with  which  any  other  cause  of  any  thing  near  its  importance 
has  progressed,  in  the  world's  history.  I  am  not  able  to  fix  upon  any 
date  or  event  which  I  could  regard  as  the  commencement  of  the  enter- 
prise— whether  to  consider  the  imprisonment  of  Garrison,  at  Baltimore, 
or  the  establishment  of  the  Liberator,  in  Boston,  in  the  winter  of  1831, 


38 

or  something  else,  as  the  commencement  of  the  abolition  enterprise,  I 
know  not.  But  it  is  of  very  little  consequence.  The  enterprise  com- 
menced about  that  time. 

In  1832,  the  New-England  Anti-Slavery  Society  was  formed  at 
Boston.  It  consisted  then,  I  believe,  of  only  about  a  dozen  young 
men,  who  were  termed,  by  way  of  scorn  and  reproach,  'ardent  young 
men' — '  incendiaries'—'  fanatics'—'  hot-headed  zealots'—'  disorganize^,' 
&c.,  &c. 

In  December,  1833,  a  convention  of  about  sixty  delegates,  from 
various  parts  of  the  country,  met  at  Philadelphia  and  formed  the 
American  Anti-Slavery  Society.  There  are  now  auxiliary  societies  in 
most  of  the  northern  states,  and  also  one  in  the  slave-holding  state  of 
Kentucky. 

I  have  not  time  or  material  here  from  which  to  give  you  a  full  history 
of  the  progress  of  the  abolition  cause.  I  will  only  notice  a  few  things. 
In  the  winter  of  1834  and  '35,  the  prejudice  was  so  strong  against  the 
abolitionists  in  Boston,  that  they  could  hardly  get  a  place  to  hold  a 
meeting  through  fear  of  a  mob.  They  have  since  gradually  won  their 
way,  until  they  have  now  about  fifteen  hundred  societies,  and  probably 
not  less  than  two  hundred  thousand  persons  who  have,  or  are  ready  to 
subscribe  to  their  principles,  and  join  with  them  in  their  measures. 

The  cause  was  never  increasing  faster.  Such  success  in  what  Jef- 
ferson called  "  the  interesting  spectacle  of  justice  in  conflict  with 
avarice  and  oppression"  is  most  encouraging  to  its  friends,  and  should 
warn  all  who  are  not  its  friends  to  "refrain  from  opposing  these  men, 
lest  haply  ye  be  found  to  even  fight  against  God.  If  this  counsel,  or 
this  work,  be  of  men,  it  will  come  to  nought  of  itself;  but  if  it  be  of 
God,  ye  cannot  overthrow  them." 

The  discussion  of  slavery  and  the  determined  perseverance  of  the 
abolitionists  soon  called  forth  a  good  deal  of  bitter  and  angry  opposition. 
The  evils  which  appeared  to  be  necessarily  consequent  upon  an  agita- 
tion of  the  subject  were  so  great  as  to  intimidate  many.  I  will  notice 
some  of  these  objections  to  the  abolitionists,  and  to  agitating  the  subject 
in  any  form  at  the  north.  I  have  already  considered  our  right  to  do 
something :  but  many  who  would  assent  to  the  right  would  still  ques- 
tion the  '  expediency7  of  exercising  it.  Do  they  "  remember  those  in 
bonds  as  bound  with  them"  ?  Others  doubt  if  the  course  the  aboli- 
tionists are  taking  will  produce  any  beneficial  effects  to  the  slave  or  to 
the  country. 

It  is  said  that  a  discussion  of  the  subject  of  slavery  may  dissolve 
the  Union.  The  south  threaten  it.  It  is  neither  certain  nor  probable 
that  a  discussion  of  the  subject  will  dissolve  the  Union.  The  south 
dare  not  dissolve  the  Union,  and  if  we  would  retort  the  threat  they 
would  stop  their  mouths  and  tremble.  The  south,  knowing  our  attach- 
ment to  the  Union,  and  our  timid,  submissive  tempers,  would  make  use 
of  these  things  to  promote  their  own  ends.  But  among  themselves 
they  turn  pale,  and  the  lip  quivers  at  the  thought.  Men  threaten  others 
with  what  they  most  dread  themselves.  Had  I  time,  I  could  bring  an 
overwhelming  amount  of  proof  to  show  that  the  southerners,  when  out 


39 

of  the  hearing  of  northern  ears,  confess  that  they  dare  not  dissolve  the 
Union.  The  editor  of  the  '  Maryville  (Tenn.)  Intelligencer,'  in  his  paper 
October,  1835,  says  of  the  slaves  at  the  south,  "  their  condition  is 
second  only  to  that  of  the  WRETCHED  CREATURES  IN  HELL."  In  a  sub- 
sequent number,  he  says,  "  We  of  the  south  are  surrounded  by  a  dan- 
gerous class  of  beings,  who,  if  they  could  but  once  entertain  the  idea 
that  immediate  death  would  not  be  their  portion,  would  re-act  the  St. 
Domingo  tragedy.  But  a  consciousness  that  a  ten-fold  force  would 
gather  from  the  FOUR  CORNERS  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  and  slaughter 
them,  keeps  them  in  subjection.  BUT  TO  THE  NON-SLAVE-HOLDING 

STATES    WE      ARE      INDEBTED      FOR    A     PERMANENT       SAFE-GUARD      AGAINST 

INSURRECTION.  Without  their  assistance  the  white  population  of  the 
southern  states  would  be  TOO  WEAK  to  quiet  that  innate  desire  for 
liberty  which  is  ever  ready  to  act  itself  out."  Yet  these  are  the  slaves 
of  whom  the  Reverend  J.  C.  Postell,  of  South-Carolina,  said :  "  Contrast- 
ing the  condition  of  white  slaves  in  New-England  with  our  slaves  in 
the  south,  is  like  comparing  Egyptian  bondage  under  Pharaoh's  task- 
masters with  millenial  glory — Mild  slavery  at  the  south  is  heaven  on 
earth  to  the  tyranny  of  the  spindle  at  the  north."  A  southern  member 
of  congress  was  over-heard  to  say,  immediately  after  the  house  ad- 
journed on  the  ever  memorable  21st  of  December,  1837,  when  Mr. 
Slade,  of  Vermont,  was  put  down  whilst  speaking  against  slavery, 
"  We  have  seen  our  weakness,  we  have  seen  *  *  *  the  unconquerable 
attachment  of  all  the  south,  except  one  or  two  men  in  South-Carolina, 
to  the  Union.  Let  slavery  be  abolished  in  the  District  of  Columbia, 
let  the  capital  be  given  up  to  free  negroes,  the  District  of  Columbia 
sunk,  and  I  shall  never  give  up  the  Union  but  with  my  life."  These 
are  the  men — these  who  look  to  us  for  '  a  ten-fold  force  to  slaughter 
the  slaves'  if  they  should  rise  against  their  oppressors,  as  our  fathers 
arose  against  Great  Britain — these  men  who  have  an  '  unconquerable 
attachment  to  the  Union' — these  men  who  '  will  not  give  up  the  Union 
but  with  their  lives,'  are  they,  who  threaten  us  with  a  dissolution  of 
the  Union.  These  men,  who  have  every  thing  to  lose  and  nothing 
to  gain  by  the  act,  threaten  us,  who  have  nothing  to  lose  but  much  to 
gain,  with  a  dissolution  of  the  Union  !  and  we  are  scared  into  silence 
by  the  threat ! 

"  Be  stirring  as  the  times ;  be  fire  with  fire, 
Threaten  the  threatener,  and  out-face  the  brow 
Of  bragging  horror." 

But,  then,  if  it  come  to  the  worst,  we  are  not  bound  to  dissolve  the 
Union,  or  any  thing  else,  rather  than  do  injustice  ?  Are  we  not  bound 
to  '  leave  all,'  if  need  be,  for  righteousness'  sake  ?  They'll  dissolve  the 
Union,  they  say  :  would  it  not  be  better  to  dissolve  the  earth  itself  into 
misty  vapor,  than  to  disobey  God  ?  It  would  be  better  to  have  the 
whole  south  sink,  and  the  huge  monsters  of  the  briny  deep  gambol 
over  their  cotton  fields ;  yea,  it  were  better  that  the  earth  itself  should 
fly  from  its  orbit  into  the  wintry  regions  of  everlasting  night,  than  that 
its  inhabitants  should  continue  to  insult  the  God  of  heaven  by  enslav- 
ing his  children. 


40 

But  are  the  abolitionists  responsible  for  the  evils  of  agitating  the 
question,  be  they  what  they  may  ?  Is  it  not  rather  he  that  has  done 
the  wrong  who  is  responsible  for  its  consequences,  than  he  who  dis- 
covers and  reproves  it  ? 

It  is  frequently  said  that  we  at  the  north  do  not  know  anything 
about  slavery  ;  we  have  never  seen  it,  and  know  nothing  about  it  ex- 
cept by  report.  The  people  of  the  south,  who  live  there  in  its  midst 
and  have  the  best  opportunity  of  knowing  its  character,  do  not  regard 
it  as  a  great  evil.  Northern  men  when  they  go  there  become  slave- 
holders themselves,  and  lose  all  their  prejudice  against  the  institution 
when  they  become  acquainted  with  it. 

It  is  true  that  northern  men  do  frequently  lose  their  abhorrence  of 
slavery  and  become  slave-holders  themselves,  when  they  go  to  the 
south.  It  is  true  that  many  of  the  southerners  regard,  or  pretend  to 
regard,  slavery  as  no  evil,  but  a  blessing, — "the  corner-stone  of  our 
republican  edifice  ;"  but  they  do  not  all  so  regard  it.  The  opinion  of 
the  southerners  is  so  different  in  different  individuals,  and  at  different 
times,  to  suit  the  occasion  and  purpose  that  the  speaker  or  writer  may 
have  in  view,  that  we  can  hardly  say  what  it  is.  It  is  one  thing  or 
another,  just  as  you  may  happen  to  quote  from  one  man  or  another,  or 
from  opinions  expressed  on  one  occasion  or  another,  by  the  same  man 
even.  But  suppose  it  to  be  true,  as  it  is  assumed  in  the  above  state- 
ment, that  the  south  do  not  regard  slavery  as  an  evil,  moral  or  polit- 
ical— that  they  do  not  regard  it  as  injustice  and  cruelty — that  they  do 
not  regard  it  as  sin  against  the  most  High  God  :  what  follows  ?  what 
inference  will  you  draw  ?  Who  are  of  this  opinion  ?  What  part  of 
the  population  of  the  south  have  you  consulted,  to  receive  this  opinion 
from  them ;  those  who  reap  all  the  benefits  of  slavery,  or  those  who 
drink  the  cup  of  its  bitterness  ?  When  in  the  world's  history  has  it 
been  known  that  tyrants  have  preached  liberty  and  democracy  ?  When 
has  the  oppressor  thought  oppression  an  evil  ?  Ask  the  oppressed  and 
enslaved  if  slavery  be  no  evil.  Let  their  voice  be  heard  in  a  thing 
that  so  nearly  concerns  them  ;  and  if  they  confess,  as  you  may  find  now 
and  then  a  case  when  one  will  confess  that  slavery  is  no  evil,  we  must 
feel  that  we  have  imbruted  them  beyond  having  a  sense  of  their  wrong  ; 
we  have  clean  quenched  the  candle  which  the  Lord  lighted  up  in  their 
souls  at  their  creation.  We  shall  then  see  how  much  greater  is  the  sin 
of  slavery  than  it  otherwise  would  be,  and  how  much  more  urgent  the 
necessity  for  doing  something.  But  the  case  is  not  so  bad  as  that,  as 
is  proved  by  the  fact  that  hundreds  risk  life  and  suffer  the  extremes  of 
hunger  and  fatigue  every  year,  to  cross  the  free  states  to  Canada,  where 
oppression  cannot  reclaim  them. 

But  what  inference  do  ygu  draw  from  the  fact  that  northern  men 
become  slave-holders?     Do  we  not  know  that  vice  is  a  monster  which 

"  seen  too  oft  and  familiar  with  its  face 
We  first  pity,  then  endure,  then  embrace"  ? 

Have  not  many  of  us,  who  have  not  been  to  the  south,  grown  so 
'  familiar  with  its  face'  that  we  not  only  endure,  but  pity,  and  are 


41 

almost  ready  to  embrace  ?  It  is  this  very  deadness  of  the  moral  senti- 
ment, not  only  at  the  south,  but  also  at  the  north,  that  is  the  greatest 
discouragement  to  the  friends  of  the  slave,  and  the  strong  hold  of  hope 
for  the  slave  holder. 

The  violent  opposition  that  the  subject  meets  with  from  the  people 
of  the  north  is,  in  the  estimation  of  many,  a  further  objection  to  agi- 
tating the  subject  here.  It  verily  seems  to  me  a  reason  why  we  should 
agitate  the  subject,  and  shake  off  the  oppression  that  would  stop  free 
discussion,  and  dam  up  the  channels  of  intelligence.  It  is  time  that 
the  right  to  free  discussion  were  established  beyond  fear  of  mobs.  It 
is  time  that  people  should  be  convinced  that  brute  force  cannot  put 
down  the  truth,  or  shut  its  light  from  shining  in  upon  the  dark  scenes 
of  their  guilt  and  shame.  Every  citizen  should  come  forward  to  sus- 
tain the  right  to  free  discussion,  which  is  threatened  and  assailed,  even 
if  he  do  not  care  anything  for  the  subject  discussed.  It  is  time  that 
force  and  the  animal  passions  should  give  place  to  argument  and  con- 
science, upon  the  world-arena,  where  the  great  questions  of  right  and 
duty  are  decided  for  society.  Therefore  it  is  that  every  thoughtful 
and  reasonable  man  should  favor  the  agitation  of  this  question  ;  at  least 
so  far  as  defending  free  discussion  from  the  violence  of  mobs  is 
concerned.  Meanwhile  this  violence  does  not,  after  all,  appear  to  the 
abolitionists  as  the  most  discouraging  symptom  that  could  be.  It  shows 
that  we  are  deeply  interested  in  slavery.  It  shows  that  we  are  doing 
wrong  in  upholding  it,  and  that  we  are  determined  to  do  wrong  so  long 
as  we  can  profit  by  it.  It  shows  that  we  suffer  from  slavery,  other- 
wise there  would  be  no  opposition  to  discussing  the  subject.  But  this 
very  violence,  like  the  sick  man's  pain,  is  a  favorable  symptom.  It 
shows  that  there  is  life  yet  in  him.  We  must  expect  that  the  patient 
will  be  worse  while  the  medicine  is  operating  than  he  appeared  before 
he  took  it. 

I  will  now  state  the  principles  of  the  abolitionists,  and  the  measures 
by  which  they  propose  to  accomplish  their  object — entire  emancipa- 
tion. 

The  fundamental  principle  of  the  abolitionists  is,  that  slavery  is  a 
sin  ;  it  is  contrary  to  humanity  and  justice,  and  therefore  contrary  to 
the  laws  of  God.  It  is  making  slaves  of  God's  freemen.  It  is  there- 
fore rebellion  against  his  almighty  sovereignty.  Our  slaves  are  chil- 
dren of  the  same  heavenly  Father  with  ourselves.  We  have  taken 
them  from  the  work  God  gave  them  to  do,  and  put  them  to  do  ours,  to 
bear  our  burden,  that  we  may  be  idle  and  enjoy  the  luxuries  that  their 
labor  can  procure.  We  have  robbed  the  slave  of  his  divine  patrimony  ; 
we  have  taken  from  him  the  portion  of  the  good  things  of  this  life, 
which  God  gives  to  all  his  rational  creatures,  and  given  him,  instead 
thereof,  bonds,  stripes  and  unrequited  toil.  We  take,  so  far  as  we  can, 
all  the  joy  from  his  cup  of  life,  and  give  him  instead  thereof,  all  the 
bitterness  of  ours.  We  spoil  our  brethren  that  we  may  enrich  our- 
selves with  their  goods.  Some  of  the  abolitionists  hold  that  the  Afri- 
cans are  by  nature  equal  to  ourselves ;  and  are  now  inferior  only  through 
the  influence  of  education  and  circumstances.  But  it  is  not  on  that 


42 

ground  that  they  claim  for  the  slave  that  freedom  which  God  gave 
him,  and  we  have  robbed  him  of.  They  demand  his  freedom,  not  be- 
cause he  is  our  equal,  but  because  he  is  a  MAN — a  being  whom  God 
made  free,  capable  of  knowing  good  from  evil,  and  so  a  moral,  respon- 
sible and  immortal  being,  capable  of  progress  in  everything  that  is  good 
and  holy, — and  because  that  by  enslaving  him  we  take  away  the 
means  of  that  progress,  and  thereby  prevent  him  from  accomplishing 
the  purpose  of  his  being  here  on  earth  :  we  defeat,  so  far  as  we  can, 
God's  plan  in  creating  him. 

This  is  the  fundamental  principle  of  the  abolitionists,  and  from  this 
all  the  rest  is  derived. 

Their  aim  is  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves,  and  they  hold  to  imme- 
diate emancipation,  not  only  because  they  believe  it  safe  and  expedi- 
ent, and  that  it  would  be  better  for  both  master  and  slave  ;  but  because 
it  is  RIGHT  ;  it  is  a  dictate  of  that  moral  sentiment,  which  to  disobey 
is  to  disobey  God.  Believing  in  the  perfection  and  entireness  of  the 
retributions  of  God,  they  feel  assured  that  no  evil  so  great  can  result 
from  doing  right,  and  when  it  is  right,  as  must  result  from  continuing 
to  sin,  and  insult  the  Majesty  of  heaven  by  stealing  his  freemen  and 
impressing  them  into  our  service.  They  tremble  when  they  think  of 
this  high-handed  rebellion  against  the  King  of  heaven.  They  raise 
their  voices  and  cry  aloud  lest  the  almighty  Justice,  whose  retributions 
slumber  not,  sweep  them  and  their  fellow-countrymen  with  the  besom 
of  destruction. 

The  measures  of  the  abolitionists  are  such  as  the  nature  of  the  case 
dictates.  The  slaves  are  held  by  law  ;  therefore  the  abolitionists  seek 
to  produce  such  a  change  in  public  opinion,  and  elect  such  men  to 
office,  as  will  effect  such  a  change  in  the  laws  by  which  slaves  are  now 
held,  as  that  they  shall  be  no  longer  held  by  law.  Here  is  their  chief 
measure  ;  and  so  far  as  this  measure  is  concerned,  abolition  is  a  polit- 
ical thing,  and  no  farther.  There  is  no  design  to  advance  the  inter- 
ests of  one  or  another  of  the  present  political  parties.  In  so  far  as  emanci- 
pation is  to  be  effected  only  by  a  modification  of  the  laws  to  that  effect, 
abolitionists  must  carry  their  principles  to  the  ballot-box.  This  is  one 
of  their  legitimate  and  necessary  means  of  effecting  their  object.  And 
we  northerners,  who  have  consented,  and  even  helped  to  fasten  the 
chains  upon  the  slave,  are  in  duty  bound  to  help  unloose  his  bands  and 
let  him  go  free. 

Hence  the  great  work  the  abolitionists  have  to  do  is  to  change  pub- 
lic opinion  upon  the  subject  of  slavery.  This  they  seek  to  do  by 
lectures,  pamphlets,  papers,  societies,  reports,  and  all  the  ordinary 
means  used  to  effect  the  public  mind.  When  this  is  done,  and  as  fast 
as  it  is  done,  they  will  change  the  views  and  policy  of  legislative 
bodies,  so  that  they  will  act  upon  the  subject  and  enact  such  laws  and 
adopt  such  measures  as  may  be  most  conducive  to  the  freedom  of  the 
lave. 

Believing  that  congress  has  authority  over  slavery  in  the  District  of 
Columbia  and  the  United  States  territories,  and  over  the  internal  slave- 
trade,  they  aim  to  take  every  fair  and  lawful  means  to  get  abolitionists 


43 

into  congress,  and  to  use  every  fair  and  lawful  means  to  influence  them, 
and  the  body  generally,  after  they  get  there. 

Beyond  the  District  of  Columbia,  and  the  territories,  and  the  internal 
slave  trade,  they  do  not,  I  believe,  generally  claim  any  political  right  to 
act.  Their  only  measure  then  is,  to  operate  upon  public  opinion  in  the 
southern  states,  so  far  as  they  can,  and  thus  bring  them  to  do,  themselves, 
what  the  northern  abolitionists  claim  no  political  right  to  do. 

It  is  one  of  the  uniform  principles  of  the  abolitionists,  to  urge  the  slave 
to  bear  his  slavery  with  patience  and  meekness  until  the  day  of  his  de- 
liverance come.  While  they  have  no  doubt  that  if  the  slaves  should 
rise,  and  some  one  place  himself  at  their  head  and  gain  their  freedom  by 
force  of  arms,  he  would  thereby  earn  for  his  name  a  place  beside  our 
own  immortal  Washington's  on  the  rolls  of  fame,  still  they  discourage 
insurrection,  and  mostly  because  they  believe  with  the  Quakers,  that  a 
resort  to  physical  force,  even  in  self  defence,  is  unjustifiable.  It  is  some- 
times said  that  the  abolitionists  seek  to  provoke  the  slaves  to  insurrec- 
tion. Nothing  is  more  false  and  calumnious.  The  abolitionists  are 
mostly  '  peace  men,'  as  they  are  called,  and  regard  war,  even  defensive 
war,  as  contrary  to  the  command,  '  resist  not  evil.'  No;  they  seek  the 
peaceful  emancipation  of  the  slaves,  and  that  only. 

It  is  frequently  said  that  the  professed  abolitionists  carry  things  too 
far — that  they  are  fanatical.  But  do  not  people  perceive  that  this  is  in 
consequence  of  the  opposition  they  meet  with?  If  the  river  be  obstructed 
it  must  rise  till  it  can  carry  all  before  it.  It  is  unavoidable  that  men  who 
feel  an  undoubting  confidence  in  the  justice  and  righteousness  of  their 
cause,  should  be  provoked  to  extremes  by  violent  opposition.  This  is 
always  the  case.  The  people  always  think  that  the  reformers  of  their 
age  carry  things  to  extremes.  Yet  it  is  almost  always  the  case  that  fu- 
ture ages  reverse  this  decision.  The  influence  of  opposition  and  per- 
secution is  irresistible;  and  while  we  have  men,  and  not  angels  or  gods, 
to  preach  up  our  reformations,  they  will  be  driven  by  these  influences  to 
do  and  say  many  things  that  they  otherwise  might  not  have  said.  The 
persecutions  that  the  abolitionists  have  suffered  for  opinion's  sake,  are 
beyond  what  you  would  believe,  if  I  should  relate  them  to  you.  They 
will  form  one  of  the  darkest  and  most  disgraceful  pages  in  our  country's 
history.  They  have  been  cast  out  of  society,  insulted  in  the  streets, 
slandered  and  maligned  in  public  prints,  denied  all  places  of  assembling 
for  their  meetings,  had  their  meetings  disturbed  by  mobs  and  the  houses 
in  which  they  were  held  burnt  down  ;  they  have  been  whipped,  tarred 
and  feathered,  dragged  through  the  streets  by  mobs — they  have  had  their 
dwellings  forcibly  entered,  torn  down  and  burnt  with  all  their  furniture 
before  their  eyes,  and  finally  they  have  been  murdered  in  the  streets,  and 
all  this  for  doing  what  the  law  allows  every  man  to  do,  and  has  engaged 
to  defend  him  in  doing  it.  The  abolitionists  have  never  provoked  this  law- 
less violence  by  first  transgressing  the  laws  themselves.  No  instance  of 
this  can  be  found. 

When  we  consider  that  the  abolitionists  have  persevered,  in  the  face  of 
all  this  opposition  and  lawless  persecution,  does  it  not  prove  to  us  that 
they  are  no  hypocrites,  no  self-interested  partizans,  but  are  honest  and 
in  earnest  ?  Does  it  not  prove  that  they  are  moved  by  an  irresistible 
spirit  ?  Can  we  wonder  that  they  have  sometimes  gone  to  extremes  and 


44 

taken  violent  measures,  when  such  extremes  of  violence  have  been  used 
against  them?  But,  be  it  remembered  that  the  abolitionists  did  not  re- 
sort to  violent  and  uncharitable  measures  and  epithets  first ;  they  did 
not  resort  to  such  things  until  they  were  driven  to  it.  It  is  no  part  of 
their  plan.  Their  plan  was  to  enlighten  the  public  mind  concerning  the 
great  sin  they  were  committing,  and  appeal  to  the  consciences  of  men 
and  set  public  opinion  against  slavery. 

The  most  sharp-sighted  southerners  saw  their  aim.  They  complained 
that  "the  moral  sentiment  of  the  world  has  been  armed  against  them." 
John  C.  Calhoun  says,  "  Do  they  (the  south)  expect  the  abolitionists  will 
resort  to  arms,  will  commence  a  crusade  to  liberate  the  slaves  by  force? 

*  *     *      Let  me  tell  our  friends  of  the  south  who  differ  from  us,  that 
the  war  which  the  abolitionists  wage  against  us  is  of  a  very  different  char- 
acter and  FAR  MORE  EFFECTIVE  ;  it  is  waged,  not  against  our  lives,  but  our 
CHARACTERS."     Governor  Hamilton,  in  his  report  to  the  legislature  of 
South  Carolina  asks,  "  Are  we  to  wait  until  our  enemies  have  built  up   * 

*  *     a  body  of  PUBLIC  OPINION  against  us  WHICH  IT  WOULD  BE  ALMOST 

IMPOSSIBLE  TO  RESIST  WITHOUT  SEPARATING  OURSELVES  FROM  THE  SO- 
CIAL SYSTEM  OF  THE  REST  OF  THE  WORLD?"  Duff  Green,  editor  of  the 

United  States'  Telegraph,  printed  at  Washington,  said  in  that  paper,  in 
November,  1835,  "We  are  of  those  who  believe  the  south  has  nothing 
to  fear  from  servile  war.  We  do  not  believe  that  the  abolitionists  intend, 
or  could  if  they  would,  excite  our  slaves  to  insurrection.  The  danger  of 
this  is  small.  WTe  believe  that  WE  HAVE  MOST  TO  FEAR  FROM  THE  OR- 
GANIZED ACTION  UPON  THE  CONSCIENCES  and  fears  of  the  slave-holders 
themselves,  from  the  insinuations  of  their  DANGEROUS  HERESIES  (!)  into 
our  schools,  our  PULPITS  and  our  domestic  circles.  It  is  only  by  alarm- 
ing the  CONSCIENCES  of  the  weak  and  diffusing  among  our  people  a  MOR- 
BID SENSIBILITY  07»  the  question  of  slavery,  that  the  abolitionists  can  ac- 
complish their  object.  Preparatory  to  this,  they  are  laboring  to  saturate 
the  non-slaveholding  states  with  the  belief  that  slavery  is  a  sin  against  God. 
We  must  meet  the  question  in  all  its  bearings.  We  must  satisfy  the  con- 
sciences, we  must  allay  the  fears  of  our  people.  We  must  satisfy  them 

that  SLAVERY  IS   OF  ITSELF  RIGHT  ;  that  IT   IS  NOT  A  SIN  AGAINST  GoD  J  that 

it  is  not  an  evil,  moral  or  political."  In  another  paper  the  same  editor 
says,  "  We  hold  that  our  sole  reliance  is  on  ourselves ;  that  we  have  most 
to  fear  from  the  gradual  operation  on  public  opinion  among  ourselves, 
and  that  those  are  the  most  insidious  and  dangerous  invaders  of  our  RIGHTS 
and  interests,  who,  coming  to  us  in  the  guise  of  friendship,  endeavor  to 
persuade  us  THAT  SLAVERY  is  A  SIN,  a  curse,  an  evil.  It  is  not  true  that 
the  south  sleep  upon  a  volcano,  that  we  are  afraid  to  go  to  bed  at  night, 
that  we  are  fearful  of  murder  and  pillage.  OUR  GREATEST  CAUSE  OF 

APPREHENSION  IS  FROM  THE  OPERATION  OF  THE  MORBID  SENSIBILITY  WHICH 

APPEALS  TO  THE  CONSCIENCES  OF  OUR  PEOPLE,  and  would  make  them  the 
voluntary  instruments  of  their  own  ruin."  What  confessions  are  these ! 
The  south  knowingly  arrays  itself  in  opposition  and  hostility  to  men 
who  they  acknowledge  appeal  to  the  consciences  of  men.  The  south, 
by  their  own  confession,  array  themselves  against  the  moral  sentiment  of 
the  world  ;  against  the  consciences  of  men,  and  against  God  !  Oh !  who 
does  not  tremble  for  them,  and  cry,  God  be  merciful  and  spare  them 
canst  thou  forgive  them  ?  they  know  what  they  do. 


45 

It  is  sometimes  asked  if  the  course  the  abolitionists  are  now  taking,  is 
the  best,  and  is  a  going  to  effect  any  thing.  I  confess,  not  only  that  I 
can  see  no  better  course  than  the  one  they  are  taking,  but  that  I  can  see 
no  other  possible  course.  There  are  many  who  object  to  this  course,  but 
I  have  never  seen  one  who  could  point  out  a  better,  or  even  another, 
course.  And  making  due  allowances  for  the  extravagances  and  improper 
things  of  all  kinds  that  unavoidably  accompany  such  movements  against 
public  opinion,  I  think  there  will  be  nothing  in  the  course  of  the  aboli- 
tionists that  even  the  most  fastidious  can  object  to,  unless  he  be  really  in 
favor  of  slave-holding,  either  for  itself  or  its  subserviency  to  some  of  his 
selfish  aims. 

The  success  and  effects  thus  far,  of  the  enterprize,  have  been  what 
were  foreseen.  It  is  sometimes  asked,  What  have  they  gained  ?  Much  ; 
very  much.  Two  hundred  thousand  complete  abolitionists,  and  two  or 
three  times  that  number  thawed  and  tamed  down  so  as  to  be  considered 
more  than  half  converted.  They  have  got  the  public  ready  to  hear  with- 
out mobbing  them.  They  have  gained  access  to  meeting-houses,  and 
other  places  of  public  meeting.  They  have,  in  fine,  got  things  into  suc- 
cessful operation  at  the  north,  the  only  spot  that  will  receive  the  leaven 
that  is  to  leaven  the  whole  lump. 

The  effect  upon  the  south  has  been  what  might  have  been  expected. 
Slave-holding  is  founded  upon  the  lower,  animal  nature — it  receives  no 
countenance  from  reason  and  conscience.  That  person  who  determines 
to  hold  a  slave  must  be  under  the  influence  of  his  lower  nature  ;  hence 
when  you  oppose  slavery  you  call  forth  all  the  fury  and  foam  of  the  bois- 
terous animal  nature.  When  the  slave-holders  see  that  the  abolitionists 
are  by  no  means  intimidated  by  their  rage,  but  receive  all  as  a  matter  of 
course,  things  that  they  had  foreseen  and  provided  for,  they  will  think 
more  seriously  of  the  matter  and  change  their  position.  Their  animal 
nature  is  overcome  by  the  undisturbed  self-possession  of  the  abolitionists, 
as  the  wild  beast  of  the  forest,  or  the  scarcely  less  animal  highwayman,  is 
completely  disarmed  and  overcome  by  the  calm,  self-possessed  dignity  of 
the  higher  moral  nature.  The  south,  seeing  that  the  north  are  not  to  be 
scared  by  '  sound  and  fury,  signifying  nothing,'  will  take  another  course. 
When  all  else  has  failed,  and  the  abolitionists  are  pressing  upon  them 
with  constantly  increasing  numbers,  the  slave-holders  will  be  obliged  to 
discuss  the  subject  upon  moral  grounds,  and  in  the  light  of  conscience. 
When  they  do  that,  slavery  falls  at  once,  and  the  object  of  the  aboli- 
tionists, emancipation,  is  attained.  They  may  disband  their  forces,  and 
repose  upon  their  laurels. 

At  present,  the  southerners  do  not,  generally,  understand  and  appre- 
ciate the  motives  of  the  abolitionists.  They  cannot  see  what  we  are 
going  to  gain  by  emancipation.  They  flatter,  beseech,  threaten,  just 
according  to  the  mood  they  happen  to  be  in  ;  or  the  mode  they  think 
will  be  most  successful.  They  hear  certain  strange,  fanatical  things 
spoken  of  by  the  abolitionists,  called  justice,  humanity,  and  conscience ; 
but  they  cannot  see  why  they  should  value  these  so  much  more  highly 
than  the  advantages,  conveniences  and  luxuries  of  unpaid,  permanent, 
hereditary  '  help' ;  who  are,  withal,  so  very  submissive  and  obedient,  as 
to  seldom  attempt  to  have  a  will  or  an  opinion  of  their  own. 

X.  I  will  tax  your  patience  no  farther  at  present  than  to  notice  a  few 


46 

objections  to  the  object  that  the  abolitionists  have  in  view.  These  ob- 
jections arise  from  a  consideration  of  the  evils  that  it  is  feared  may  come 
from  immediate  emancipation. 

We  expect  that  evils  will  result  from  emancipation.  It  is  not  to  be 
expected  that  two  hundred  and  twenty  years  of  injustice,  cruelty  and  sin, 
can  be  atoned  for  without  suffering.  But,  then,  of  what  kind  are  the 
evils  that  will  result  from  immediate  emancipation  ?  Are  they  sins,  or 
merely  inconveniences  ?  They  are  merely  the  evils — the  inconveniences 
— brought  upon  us  by  our  passed  sins.  They  are  no  sins,  to  be  followed 
by  the  unslumbering  retributions  of  justice.  We  commit  no  sin  by  free- 
ing the  slave.  Is  it  not,  therefore,  better  to  suffer  all  the  evils  of  imme- 
diate emancipation,  be  they  what  they  may,  than  to  continue  to  sin  by 
continuing  slavery  ?  Every  day  that  we  delay  emancipation,  the  difficul- 
ties in  the  way  of  it,  and  the  evils  of  it  when  it  shall  have  come,  increase. 
The  evils  attending  the  abolition  of  slavery  are  great ;  but  we  have  brought 
them  upon  ourselves.  The  Africans  did  not  come  here  of  themselves, 
and  inflict  themselves  upon  us.  No,  we  brought  them  here  against  their 
wills.  They  have  done  us  no  wrong.  We  have  brought  the  evil  upon 
ourselves.  Shall  we  then  delay  to  do  justice  because  it  will  be  attended 
by  deserved  punishment,  and  yet  pretend  to  be  lovers  of  righteousness  ? 

Slavery  is  not  merely  an  evil  that  we  must  remedy  some  time  ;  but  it 
is  an  evil  that  we  are  guilty  of  increasing  every  day  until  we  do  remedy 
it.  While  we  delay,  we  are  not  like  the  band  of  robbers  who  have 
repented  of  their  course  and  said,  We  will  cease  to  do  evil  and  restore  to 
every  man  what  we  have  taken  from  him,  by  and  by,  as  it  may  suit  our 
convenience ;  but  we  are  like  the  band  who  resolve  to  go  on  to  rob  and 
plunder  until  they  have  enough,  and  can  spare  enough  to  make  restitu- 
tion. For,  even  now,  while  we  are  deliberating,  we  are  adding  to  the 
evil.  There  is  no  standing  upon  neutral  ground ;  no,  not  so  much  as 
long  enough  to  decide  what  to  do.  We  not  only  hold  those  in  slavery 
who  are  now  enslaved,  but  we  reduce  eight  or  nine  freemen  to  slavery  every 
hour  in  the  day.  Every  day,  we  part  husbands  and  wives  ;  parents  and 
children ;  brothers  and  sisters.  Do  not  say  that  the  Africans  do  not  feel 
this  evil,  for  they  are  remarkable  for  the  strength  of  their  personal  attach- 
ments. The  husband  sees  his  wife,  the  parent  his  children,  taken  and 
carried,  they  know  not  where — and  sold,  they  know  not  to  whom.  They 
only  know  that  bonds,  and  stripes,  and  servitude  await  them  till  death 
comes  to  their  relief.  So  deeply  do  they  feel  this  separation,  that  they 
often  commit  suicide  rather  than  endure  it.  Yet,  probably  not  less  than 
an  hundred  such  separations  occur  every  day  ;  and  that  too  by  laws  which 
every  one  of  us,  my  hearers,  have  a  voice  in  making  or  repealing  ? 

But  we  admit  that  there  will  be  evils  attending  the  emancipation  of  the 
slaves.  They  may  come  before  emancipation  takes  place.  Do  we  not 
see  them  around  us  now  ?  What  else  are  the  sufferings  and  blood  of  the 
martyrs  to  the  cause  of  emancipation  ?  the  mobs  and  riots  that  disturb 
and  disgrace  our  country  ?  the  dangers  to  which  our  public  officers  are 
exposed  for  a  conscientious  discharge  of  their  duty  ?  What  are  these 
but  the  evils  attendant  upon  emancipation  ?  There  may  also  be  evils 
consequent  upon  emancipation.  It  is  hardly  to  be  hoped  that  there  will 
not  be.  But  there  have  been  none  of  the  evils  that  were  expected  to  follow 
the  abolition  of  slavery,  in  Antigua,  where  the  experiment  has  had  its 


fairest  trial.  I  refer  to  Antigua,  in  particular,  because  we  have  more 
definite  information  concerning  that  island  than  any  other  of  the  West 
Indies,  where  slavery  has  been  abolished. 

Two  of  our  own  citizens  went  to  Antigua  to  examine  into  the  success 
of  the  abolition  experiment  there.  I  extract  the  following  statements 
from  their  work.  I  do  not  know  that  its  credibility  or  accuracy  has  ever 
been  questioned. 

On  the  first  day  of  August,  1834,  there  were  thirty  thousand  slaves 
emancipated.  It  was  an  experiment  of  immediate  emancipation.  There 
had  been  no  '  gradual  preparation,'  which  we  are  sometimes  told  must 
precede  emancipation.  They  were  all  set  free  at  once.  They  received 
the  boon  with  religious  rejoicing  and  devout  thanksgiving.  I  give  the 
following  particulars  concerning  the  experiment  in  Antigua. 

1.  The  liberated  slaves  have  been  perfectly  peaceable,  and  manifested 
no  disposition  to  revenge  their  former  wrongs. 

2.  They  have  been  more  industrious  than  they  were  before  they  were 
free ;  so  much  so,  that  it  is  found  that  they  will  do  so  much  more  work 
and  do  it  so  much  better,  that  it  is  more  profitable  to  hire  them  and  pay 
them  wages  when  they  are  free,  than  to  own  them  and  merely  feed  and 
clothe  them. 

3.  They  are  obedient  to  the  laws  and  are  easily  governed  by  them ; 
and  thereby  they  show,  not  only  that  it  is  safe  to  set  them  free,  but  that 
they  are  capable  of  governing  themselves. 

4.  There  are  schools  for  the  freed  slaves,  (established  on  purpose  for 
them,  1  believe,)  and   they  manifest  a  disposition  to  learn,  and  improve 
their  moral  and  intellectual  character. 

5.  They  are  far  more  moral  than  they  were  before  they  were  free. 
They  seem  to  take  a  pride  in  having  neat  dwellings,  and  quiet,  comforta- 
ble homes. 

6.  And  finally,  the  planters  who  opposed  abolition,  just  as  we  do,  and 
on  precisely  the  same  ground,  now  confess  their  error,  and  recommend 
abolition  as  safe,  expedient  and  profitable. 

The  value  of  property  has  greatly  increased.  Men  who  dared  not 
sleep,  while  they  had  slaves,  without  their  doors  barred  and  bolted,  and 
arms  by  the  side  of  their  beds,  now  feel  no  necessity  for  these  things. 
The  negroes  are  as  peaceable,  industrious,  and  moral,  as  any  citizens. 
They  have  mostly  gone  to  work  on  the  same  plantations  where  they  were 
held  as  slaves.  In  a  very  few  cases,  where  the  master  had  been  very 
cruel,  they  refused  to  work  for  him  and  have  gone  to  work  somewhere 
else. 

Now  there  is  no  reason  why  emancipation  should  not  succeed  as  well 
here  as  it  did  in  Antigua.  Many  men,  who  certainly  know,  have  said 
that  there  are  some  things  here  more  favorable  to  a  successful  experi- 
ment of  abolition  than  in  the  West  Indies,  and  nothing  that  is  less  favor- 
able than  it  was  there. 

But  we  admit  that  there  will  be  evils—inconveniences — attending  the 
abolition  of  slavery.  We  dare  not  hope  for  the  contrary.  But  it  seems 
to  me  that  every  objection  to  immediate  emancipation,  arising  from  a 
consideration  of  its  attendant  inconveniences,  betrays  a  great  want  of 
faith  in  God,  certainly  much  greater  than  we  should  expect  to  find  in  any 
Christian  country.  It  betrays  a  great  distrust  of'God's  overruling  Prov- 


48 

idence,  or  a  very  low  and  inefficient  sense  of  justice  in  people,  to  choose 
sin  rather  than  righteousness  through  a  fear  of  the  consequences  of  do- 
ing right. 

Is  it  not  a  fundamental  axiom  in  justice  that  the  punishment  of  crime 
shall  be  greater  than  the  profits  of  crime  and  the  evils  attendant  upon 
doing  right  ?  If  the  punishment  for  horse-stealing  were  only  a  fortnight's 
imprisonment  to  hard  labor,  horse-stealing  would  be  a  pretty  good  busi- 
ness. One  could  hardly  make  money  so  fast  in  any  other  way.  But  then 
the  law  that  assigned  such  a  punishment  to  such  a  crime  would  be  un- 
wise and  unjust.  It  is  the  object  of  punishment  to  prevent  crime ;  there- 
fore the  punishment  must  be  greater  than  all  the  inducements  to  crime  ; 
otherwise  they  are  of  none  effect.  They  will  not  prevent  crime  and 
restore  justice.  Human  minds  may  not  presume  to  fathom  the  depths 
of  divine  justice  ;  but  then  we  may  be  assured,  that,  if  there  be  a  God  of 
justice  in  the  heavens,  the  punishment  for  continuing  slavery  must  be 
greater  than  to  counterbalance  the  profits  of  slavery,  and  the  evils  of  im- 
mediate emancipation.  This  I  should  consider  a  sufficient  answer  to  every 
objection  that  can  be  brought  against  immediate  emancipation.  Were 
the  moral  sentiment  of  the  people  so  high  as  to  enable  them  to  under- 
stand clearly  the  principles  of  justice  and  right,  and  consequently  to  make 
them  feel  willing  to  obey  its  dictates,  even  when  they  could  not  see,  from 
a  calculation  of  the  consequences,  that  it  would  be  safe  and  profitable  so 
to  do,  there  could  be  no  objection  to  immediate  emancipation,  arising 
from  a  consideration  of  its  evils,  sufficient  to  clog  the  mind  for  one  mo- 
ment in  corning  to  a  decision  as  to  what  course  to  take.  But  the  moral 
sentiment — the  sense  of  justice  in  the  majority — is  not  high  enough  to 
give  them  this  faith.  I  will  therefore  speak  of  a  few  of  the  objections  to 
immediate  emancipation. 

1.  It  is  said  that  emancipation  would  be  infringing  upon  the  slave- 
holder's right  to  property,  one  of  man's  most  sacred  rights.  According 
to  the  slave  laws,  the  slave  is  the  property  of  the  master.  This  is  a  legal 
question  and  should  be  met  upon  legal  grounds.  How  then  stands  the 
slave-holder's  right  to  property  in  the  slave.  The  man  who  has  made  a 
slave  of  a  freeman  has  just  the  same  right  to  property  in  the  slave  that 
the  thief  has  in  the  horse  he  has  stolen,  and  no  more.  The  master  has 
stolen  the  freeman  and  made  him  a  slave.  Freedom  is  every  man's  birth- 
right, therefore  every  slave  is  stolen  property  ;  and  because  the  thieves, 
the  man-stealers,  say  that  what  they  have  stolen  is  their  property,  is  it 
therefore  their  property  ?  The  laws  decide  not.  The  man  who  has 
bought  a  slave  or  received  him  as  a  present  or  inherited  him,  has  no  more 
right  to  property  in  that  slave  than  the  man  who  has  bought  the  stolen 
horse  of  the  thief  has  in  the  horse.  The  thief  did  not  own  the  horse  and 
therefore  could  not  sell  him,  and  the  buyer  could  obtain  no  right  to  prop- 
erty in  him  by  the  bargain.  Again,  we  have  seen  that  the  constitution  of 
the  United  States  does  not  consider  slaves  as  property,  and  therefore  the 
statute  laws  of  the  slave-holding  states  are  unconstitutional.  It  is  of  no 
consequence  that  they  declare  the  slaves  property  ;  a  greater  than  they 
says,  slaves  are  not  property. 

Here,  then,  the  slave-holder  has  no  legal  right  to  property  in  the  slave. 
Much  less  can  he  have  a  moral  right.  There  is  probably  no  slave-holder 
whose  slaves  have  not  earned  him  more  than  they  cost  him.  They  have 


49 

more  than  earnt  their  freedom.  But  supposing  they  had  not ;  supposing 
that  emancipation  would  be  taking  away  the  master's  property,  had  not 
men  better  be  poor,  than  be  rich  when  they  must  be  rich  by  sin  and  ra- 
pacity ?  Shall  men  steal  and  rob  and  enslave,  rather  than  be  poor  ?  Is 
God  dead  that  ye  will  go  on  to  rob  and  plunder  and  enslave  ?  Is  the  arm 
of  almighty  justice  withered  that  ye  will  dare  its  vengeance  ? 

Man  cannot  be  owned.  You  may  claim  the  sun,  moon  and  stars,  if 
you  will  ;  but  do  not  pretend  to  own  your  fellow-man.  The  sun,  moon 
and  stars  shine  but  for  him.  They  shall  one  day  sink  to  everlasting  night 
and  be  no  more ;  but  the  man  thou  claimest  for  thine,  shall  be  a  son  of 
God,  an  angel  to  shine  like  a  star  in  the  firmament  when  earth  and  crea- 
ted things  shall  have  sunk  back  to  nothingness,  from  whence  they  came. 
Yes  ;  the  man  you  claim  and  whip  and  tread  upon,  shall  one  day  be  an 
angel  of  light,  and  serve  the  Most  High  through  the  endless  ages  of  eter- 
nity ;  and  think,  O  slave-holder !  how  wilt  thou  feel  to  stand  by  his  side 
in  the  presence  of  thy  God  and  his  God,  thy  Father  and  his  Father,  and 
see  him,  it  may  be,  more  honored  than  thou  thyself! 

2.  It  is  said  that  the  slave,  if  freed,  will  be  immoral  and  vicious  ;  that 
they  are  not  capable  of  taking  care  .of  themselves.      The  success  of  the 
West  India  experiment  is  a  sufficient  answer  to  this.     The  slaves  there, 
instead  of  becoming  more  immoral,  have  become  more  moral  and  vir- 
tuous.    They  have  also  shown  that  they  can  take  care  of  themselves  ; 
that  they  are  capable  of  being  governed  by  the  laws.     The  plea  that  it  is 
better  for  the  slaves  to  remain  as  they  are,  in  any  of  its  forms,  is  false. 
It  is  suggested  by  no  desire  for  the  slaves'  good.     What  would  a  parent 
say  if  one  of  his  children,  to  whom  he  had  given  no  authority  over  the 
rest,  should  beat  and  bind  them,  and  compel  them  to  leave  the  work 
that  the  parent  had  set  them  about  and  do  his  ?  and  then  should  offer  as 
an  excuse  that  it  was  better  for  them,  he  had  done  it  for  their  good  ? 
Would  this  be  considered  a  good  excuse  ?     Would  any  parent  receive  it 
as  a  sufficient  excuse  ?     Will  God  ? 

3.  Again,  it  is  said  that  if  the  slaves  are  freed,  we  shall  be  overrun 
with  them  here  at  the  north.     But  suppose  we  are;  had  we  not  rather  be 
overrun  with  negroes,  than  with  the  judgments  of  almighty  God  ?     Had 
we  not  better  do  right  and  commit  ourselves  in  our  innocence  into  the 
hands  of  him  who  loveth  righteousness,  than  to  dare  his  vengeance  by 
continuing  to  insult  and  rebel  against  his  overruling  majesty  ? 

But  the  fear  of  being  overrun  with  slaves  is  a  groundless  fear.  At 
least  there  is  no  more,  nor  in  fact  so  much,  ground,  to  fear  being  over- 
run with  them  if  they  are  emancipated  as  there  is  if  they  are  not.  The 
slave-holding  territory  must  sometime  become  full  of  slaves.  What  will 
the  masters  then  do  ?  They  cannot  export  them  ;  they  will  send  the 
old,  the  infirm,  the  indolent  and  the  vicious,  to  us  in  the  free  states, 
and  we  must  receive  them.  In  that  case  we  shall  have  the  worst  part, 
the  very  offscouring  of  the  slave  population  ;  but  if  they  are  freed  we 
stand  an  even  chance  to  get  the  best  of  them. 

There  are  many  and  weighty  reasons  for  believing  that  the  negroes 
when  freed  will  remain  at  the  south.  They  are  there,  and  their  attach- 
ment to  their  native  soil  is  uncommonly  strong.  The  climate  suits 
them  far  better  than  the  colder  climates  of  the  northern  states.  The 


50 

masters,  who  now  own  them  as  slaves,  will  need  to  employ  them  as 
laborers  to  do  the  same  work  that  they  now  do.  When  we  consider 
all  these  things  we  see  but  very  little  reason  to  fear  that  the  north  will 
be  overrun  with  negroes,  if  they  should  be  freed.  But  if  there  were 
ever  so  much  reason  to  fear  that  the  blacks  would  flock  to  the  northern 
states,  as  thick  as  bees  to  the  hive,  would  it  not  be  better  to  have  it  so 
than  to  keep  them  in  bondage  ?  Will  you  shut  a  man  up  in  a  prison, 
because  his  appearance,  the  appearance  that  God  has  given  him,  is  not 
grateful  to  your  eyes  ?  Will  you  murder  a  man,  to  get  him  out  of 
your  way  ?  You  had  better  do  so  than  to  keep  him  in  hopeless  slavery. 
No,  we  had  better  have  them  so  thick  around  us  that  the  day  should 
be  dark  with  their  sable  visages,  than  to  keep  them  as  they  are. 

But  I  will  enumerate  no  more  objections.  It  is  not  worth  our  while 
to  stop  pleading  with-  every  man  we  may  find  by  the  way,  especially 
if  we  see,  as  we  but  too  often  do  see,  that  his  opinions  are  disposed  of. 
He  can  no  more  convey  himself  to  our  ranks,  than  the  slave  on  the 
southern  plantations.  His  opinions  are  sold,  or  mortgaged,  to  party,  to 
avarice,  or  something  else,  so  that  he  has  but  a  show  of  possessing 
them.  This,  I  say,  is  the  case  with  many  ;  am  I  uncharitable  when 
I  say,  with  all,  who  urge  objections  like  those  I  have  now  been  con- 
sidering ?  But  the  day  of  emancipation  hastens  on.  It  comes  moved 
by  an  almighty  hand.  Do  not  oppose  the  abolitionists,  if  you  will 
not  help  them.  Do  not  charge  them  with  the  evils  of  emancipation, 
be  they  what  they  may.  They  are  but  an  instrument  in  the  hand  of 
God.  The  evils  attendant  upon  their  course  are  to  be  charged  upon 
the  sin  against  which  they  preach,  the  disease  they  would  cure.  You 
may  cry  peace,  peace,  but  there  is  no  peace  for  the  wicked.  You  may 
say  peace,  be  still,  to  the  abolitionists,  but  if  they  should  hold  their 
peace  the  very  stones  would  cry  out,  for  God  will  be  heard.  You  may 
say  peace,  peace,  but  there  is  no  peace  for  the  heart-broken,  chain- 
galled  sons  of  God,  whom  you  hold  in  bondage.  You  may  cry  peace, 
to  the  volcano,  to  the  whirlwind  and  the  hurricane  ;  you  may  command 
silence  to  the  muttering  thunder,  the  rumbling  earthquake,  and  the  fury 
of  foaming  ocean's  rage,  but  O!  do  not  presume  to  say  'peace,'  be 
still,  to  the  God  of  heaven,  for  the  retributions  of  almighty  justice  will 
not  keep  peace  while  man  doth  wrong. 

I  have  thus  accomplished  the  work  I  proposed.  I  have  endeavored 
to  give  an  account  of  the  origin,  history  and  changes  of  human  slavery, 
and  to  state  especially  the  number  and  condition  of  the  slaves  in  this 
country,  and  the  means  we  may  use  for  their  release.  We  have  seen 
that  here,  in  this  country,  where  the  citizens  are  the  freest  of  any  qn 
earth,  the  slaves  are  in  the  worst  and  most  hopeless  slavery.  "  Among 
the  ancient  nations  their  great  rights  of  property  and  personal  im- 
munity, were  with  greater  or  less  fullness  recognized  and  protected. 
Our  own  slave-holders  totally  deny  them.  The  Athenians  and  Romans 
oppressed  with  an  iron  heel ;  they  insulted  and  wronged  humanity,  but 
that  great  and  notable  principle  which  annihilates  it,  and  pronounces 
the  slave  a  thing  only,  is  altogether  the  discovery  of  men  of  a  Christian 
and  democratic  country."  This  is  carrying  things  farther  than  hu- 


51 

manity  will  bear  long,  and  affords  a  good  ground  to  hope  that  slavery 
will  soon  be  among  the  things  that  are  passed. 

I  have  also  endeavored  to  point  out  the  ways  in  which  we  may  exert 
an  influence  upon  the  subject.  Slavery  is  a  political  evil.  It  is  sapping 
the  very  foundations  of  our  republic.  It  is  a  practical  contradiction  of 
our  fundamental  axiom,  that  all  men  are  born  FREE  and  EQUAL. 
Therefore,  as  citizens,  we  are  called  upon  to  do  away  this  great  na- 
tional evil.  By  our  love  of  our  country  and  its  free  institutions,  we  are 
called  upon  to  free  it  from  this  corrupting  gangrene,  before  which  .- 
every  thing  pure,  liberal  and  democratic,  writhes  and  dies  out ;  we  are 
called  upon  to  cut  off  this  diseased  limb,  lest  the  disease  infect  the 
whole  system,  and  the  hopes  of  the  world  be  blasted  in  our  expiring 
republic.  Slavery  is  an  injustice,  a  sin  against  the  laws  of  God.^" 
Therefore,  as  Christians  and  preachers  of  righteousness,  we  are  called 
upon  to  raise  our  voice  against  this  daring  outrage  of  our  Maker's  laws. 
As  we  believe  in  a  God  who  will  reward  the  righteous  and  punish  the 
wicked,  we  must  exert  an  influence  to  save  our  country  from  that  sin 
that  is  a  reproach  to  any  people,  and  which  most  assuredly  will  call 
down  upon  us  severe  judgments.  As  believers  in  the  immortality  of 
the  human  soul,  we  are  called  upon  to  secure  to  those  to  whom  the 
'  lamp  of  life'  is  denied,  the  means  of  preparing  for  that  immortality,  -f- 
The  sufferers  are  our  fellow  men,  our  brethren;  and  therefore,  as 
philanthropists,  we  are  called  upon  to  bind  up  their  broken  hearts,  to 
alleviate  their  woes,  and  pour  the  balm  of  consolation  into  their  wounds. 
In  whatever  light  we  regard  it,  there  seems  to  come  a  long,  loud  cry 
for  help.  God,  in  his  providence,  seems  to  say,  '  son,  go  work  to-day 
in  this  my  vineyard ;  dig  up  the  noxious  weed  of  human  slavery.'  Let 
us  not  be  disobedient  to  the  call.  Let  us  be  up  and  a  doing,  for  the 
night  of  death  comes,  in  which  no  man  can  work.  Put  away  your 
hesitating  doubts.  Rise  to  action.  Take  the  first  step,  and  the  second 
will  then  become  plain.  Rise,  and  let  action  convert  your  doubts  into 
belief  or  certainty.  The  work  is  arduous.  The  struggle  will  be  long. 
It  will  call  forth  all  your  best  thoughts  and  energies — but  it  will  thereby 
make  you  wiser,  better  and  holier  beings.  By  doing  righteously,  we 
grow  in  righteousness  and  earn  our  place  in  that  mansion  which  Jesus 
has  gone  before  us  to  prepare. 

I 


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